


PS #138 Marvel High School (Or the one where Phil is a social worker in a high school and all the Avengers are his kids)

by fiendingforthesunshine



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Child Abuse, Deaf Clint Barton, Foster Care, Homelessness, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Bruce Banner, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Marvel Cameos, Mental Health Issues, Odin's A+ Parenting, Phil Coulson the social worker, Prescription Drug Use, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Phil Coulson, Protective Steve Rogers, Team Dynamics, mentions of institutionalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 41,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2724239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiendingforthesunshine/pseuds/fiendingforthesunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson is a social worker at P.S. 138 Marvel High School in New York City. His office door is almost always open and he has a constant flow of students always in his office needing extra uniforms, school supplies, a place to study or someone to talk to. Once a week he meets with his most severe cases, the kids who need serious intervention for a group therapy session, they call themselves The Avengers. </p><p>Phil just calls them his kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. I don't live in New York so I literally just made up a school. All I know is that they number their public schools because holy crap there are so many! Yeah I think the real PS (Public School) 138 is an elementary school in the Bronx. 
> 
> I'll add more tags as I go along, cause things are going to happen. 
> 
> Some backstories are comic canonsome are movie canon and some are a mix or neither. Sorry not sorry. 
> 
> Here is how I've 'aged' them at the school: 
> 
> Bruce – Junior  
> Clint – Freshman  
> Natasha – Freshman  
> Steve – Senior  
> Thor – Senior  
> Tony – Sophomore 
> 
>  
> 
> **If any of you are also following my Stars and Glitter story I promise I'm still working on it! Give me a few days and I'll have a new chapter for you!**

Phil

Phil Coulson has spent approximately all of his life in a school of some sort, and he’s perfectly content with that. 

He finally finished his masters in social work four years ago and was immediately hired to work in the New York City schools. He was zoned to Public School #138 Marvel High School, one of the most notorious schools in the city. The school was well known for taking in the worst of the worst and somehow managing to stay afloat. 

Many kids came to their school with a host of issues and a lot of them couldn’t perform at grade level although Nick Fury, the principal, would like it if they would all just show up every day mostly on time and intact. He would even take the kids not beating each other up in the hallways on an almost daily basis as a success.

Phil did his best to do what he could to help the kids out, giving them coats in the winter if they didn’t have them or trying to arrange transportation from shelters on the other side of the city to get the kids to the only school that would take them. 

Finally this year Nick Fury gave him the green light to start group therapy for some of his students and he knew exactly the kids he would put on the list. 

Phil just wanted see his kids smile once or twice. 

Bruce

If you caught Bruce at the right time he really was a good kid, Phil stopped speaking to anyone who says otherwise. 

Bruce’s father constantly abused him growing up, a loud an angry drunk smacking around a toddler creates a quiet but still similarly angry child. Bruce’s mother, on the other hand, loved her child dearly and eventually paid for that love with her own live by the hands of his father. 

After his mother died and his father was deemed unfit for trial and sent to a psychiatric ward Bruce moved in with his cousin, one of the only living relatives willing to take him in. 

Bruce was smart; his test scores proved that, Bruce was also incredibly angry, his behavior proved that. Bruce was smart enough and angry enough to plant a bomb in the basement of his middle school in Illinois. Luckily for him and the 768 students in the school the bomb didn’t go off, unluckily he was expelled. 

He and his cousin moved to New York City and the New York City Department of Education finally approved him to go back to school for his junior and senior year, as long as he was placed in a ‘sensitive needs’ classroom and Phil was on his case. 

Clint

Clint didn’t say much about his past and for all the searching and meddling the New York Department of Child Services did they couldn’t say much about his past either. 

Clint’s records were pretty well documented for a while, a note from a pediatrician when he was a little over a year old, noting significant hearing loss and the need for therapy and hearing aids, a note from an audiologist two months later when his parents got an appointment and got him hearing aids. 

There’s a section from the DCS in Iowa when he was four covering the details of his parent’s fatal car crash and the address to a children’s home in Waverly, Iowa that he and his older brother Barney were sent to live. Starting at eight years old the file is sparse (Clint and Barney had run away from the children’s home) until a cop picks him up at 14 years old walking the streets of New York City hustling for money at 2am. 

DCS placed him in a shelter for homeless youth and when they enrolled him in school and they put Phil on his case. 

Natasha

If anyone thought Bruce Banner was a terrifying ball of teenager angst, they need only meet Natasha to set the record straight. She had only moved to the United States from Russia four years ago, when she was just 10 years old. 

As a small child her parents were killed in a military training ‘accident’ that set fire to her apartment building in her hometown of Volgograd, Russia. One of the soldiers found her in the house and rescued her from the inferno and raised her as his own. 

No one knows for sure why they moved from Russia to New York and Natasha doesn’t talk to Phil about her childhood much. Some days she won’t even talk during group therapy unless it’s to pass notes to Clint. She had been taking ballet classes since living with the soldier and he immediately enrolled her in the dance program at the school. When she was caught dousing the gym clothes of one of her classmates in lighter fluid outside the school she was put on Phil’s rooster. 

Steve

Steve was a good- great kid, actually. Phil never really had any serious complaints about the student and no teacher did either but Phil knew that Steve sometimes just needed someone to talk to that didn’t have any expectations for how the conversation was going to go. 

Steve’s dad disappeared and reappeared like a chameleon through most of his life. His mother died when he was in his last year of elementary school from cancer and because Steve is ever the good kid he didn’t tell anyone that she was dead until the landlord busted through the door asking for the late rent and found her body in the boiling hot bedroom and Steve in the kitchen trying to cook for himself. 

Steve’s best friend Bucky convinced his parents to take him in and for a few years that was a perfect arrangement for everyone. One day after school Bucky was kidnapped off the street walking back from his middle school and after two months of searching the cops considered the case ‘unsolved’ and Bucky’s parents couldn’t stand to have a child that wasn’t theirs in their house so they put Steve into the foster care system. 

His first summer in foster care Steve hit a growth spurt and spent nearly every day working out, convinced that if he was a little bit bigger no one would ever mess with him, just like no one should’ve ever messed with Bucky.

Steve was Phil’s first case four years ago and seeing Steve reach his senior year was one of Phil’s proudest achievements as a social worker. 

Thor

Before Phil Coulson met Thor Odison his assumption would’ve been that he was a well-rounded and pretty decent kid. 

His mother was known around the neighborhood for being very generous with her time and her resources, his father, while a little brash, cared for his family and worked his blue collar job with respect and everyone looked up to him and his little brother (correction, adopted little brother) was smart as a whip if not occasionally bad for the fun of it. 

Close to a year ago Thor’s mother and brother were murdered just outside their apartment building. The murder was brutal, the police believe whoever killed them used multiple types of knives and possibly a sword ("A sword... really?"). The neighborhood Thor comes from is close knit in the sense that if someone does something wrong no one is going to snitch and while no one will say who did it the assumption around the neighborhood is that it was his father. 

His father had a solid alibi, wasn’t taken to trial, and the case was closed. He pulled Thor from school a week after the combined funeral for their family members. Thor showed up the next year on the first day, a little bigger, a little more stone-faced and ready for a fight. He was immediately referred to Phil. 

Tony

Tony was a little shit. 

Everyone loved him, everyone that mattered anyway. It still didn’t take away the fact that Tony lived to inconvenience anyone he come into contact with. He was smarter than Bruce and smarter than every other teacher or administrator in any school in the country probably but that didn’t mean he could actual pass his classes. 

Tony spent so much time getting into trouble that he was hardly in class and when he was he never paid attention. If he could manager to stay out of trouble and be in class to take the tests that mattered he passed them without any trouble. 

His father was a billionaire and the owner of almost half of New York and if Tony wasn’t the way he was he’d been in an Ivy League school right now but instead Tony had been kicked out of almost every school but his current one. 

Phil was pretty sure that Tony’s dad beat the shit out of his on a pretty consistent basis but you’d never know that by watching him run around in the school in a blur trying to dismantle the security system ‘just for kicks’. 

Phil took him on as a precaution last year, waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go [here](http://showme-thesun.tumblr.com) if you want to see my tumblr. I don't post a ton but it's funny sometimes? And if you sent me prompts I might write stuff for you? Possibly? :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint needs a backpack, Bruce gets pissed and the group actually behaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise the story will always be updated this soon after another chapter but I got this one done and I thought I'd just get it out here for y'all! Enjoy!

“Clint, where’s your backpack?” Phil asked. 

It was 7:52am, school started at 8:05am, and the majority of the 114 students at Marvel High School were still standing around before they went to class, thankfully everyone seemed calm this morning. A few teachers and administrators were standing in the main hallway, monitoring the students as they stopped to talk to their friends or walk towards their first class of the day. Clint Barton was walking in through the metal detectors behind a group of other Freshman students, his shoulders hunched into a jacket about two sizes to big for him and his hands clutching a purple notebook, a math workbook and a purple folder. 

Clint didn’t stop walking and Phil crossed the hallway and tapped Clint on the shoulder, as he was about to turn and start walking to his classroom. Clint looked up from the ground, his eyebrows up in question and Phil smiled and tried again, now that Clint could see his face and would probably understand him over the crowd of students in the open area. 

“Hey Clint, where’s your backpack?” 

Clint looked down at his stuff and then looked up at Phil and shrugged, “Don’t know.” 

There were almost 200 children staying at the shelter DCS had placed Clint, Carson’s Shelter for Youth and the teenagers especially, were often stealing things from each other. At least today it wasn’t his hearing aids. 

“Come on,” Phil pointed his thumb back towards the main office, where they had a room full of extra uniforms, backpacks and school supplies for any students that might need it, “Let’s go find you one in the office.” 

Clint looked down the hallway towards his class, “I’ll write you a note,” Phil offered and waited for Clint to nod and cross the hallway with him and head into the office. 

As they walked into the office Phil noticed one of his other group therapy students, Tony Stark, sitting in one of the waiting chairs in the front office, kicking his feet against the tile floor and Phil sighed, “Tony, school hasn’t even started yet, what happened this time?” 

Tony was about to respond with what Phil was sure would’ve been an elaborate story but Maria Hill, the office secretary, snapped her fingers over her pile of papers and files to get his attention, “Nothing yet, I’m just keeping him in here until it’s time to go to class. Last week he tried to set all the clocks in the school to stay at 8:04am during passing period so we’re not letting that happen again, are we Mr. Stark?” 

Tony grinned with all his teeth, “Of course, Ms. Hill, wouldn’t dream of it. Where are you and Clint going, Agent?” 

Phil sighed, Tony refused to actually refer to him with his proper and professional name even when he was half-heartedly threatened with disciplinary action, but Phil didn’t really care, if people thought he was a secret agent, he wasn’t going to fight it. 

“Back to the resource room, and no you may not come with us, you may get to class though. Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200.” 

Clint stuck his tongue out at Tony and Tony threw a wadded up piece of people their direction, missing literally anything he could’ve been aiming for. 

Phil put his hand on Clint’s shoulder to lead him out of the front office and they continued their walk back to the resource room near the back of the office. Clint leaned in the doorway after Phil unlocked the door and watched the social workers throw his keys on the desk and go back to one of the closets. Phil disappeared into the pile of donated school items and then reappeared with two backpacks in hand. One was a solid black messenger bag with the logo of a local nonprofit plastered on the front and the other and on-the-back bag, black except for dark blue straps, handles and zippers. Clint looked up from the flyer he was trying to read on Phil’s door and pointed towards the black and blue bag. Phil found a pack of pencils, a few pens and put another notebook in there just in case. 

Phil grabbed a pre-written tardy note from his desk just as the bell was ringing for the start of class. He signed the date and the time and handed it to Clint after he was done putting his own things in the backpack. 

“See you this afternoon for group?” Phil asked as they walked back towards the front office. 

Clint nodded, “See you then, Agent.” 

Phil was going to kill Tony. 

\--

Bruce ends up in the front office at least once a day. 

Almost every study at the school has a preferred staff member in the front office whether it’s Phil, or Sitwell, Hill, maybe Pepper Potts or sometimes even Nick Fury on a good day and most of the teachers know that when the student is on the verge of a meltdown they can send them to the front office to find whoever will calm them down. 

Bruce jumps from person to person but generally he sticks with Hill, Phil thinks maybe it’s because she reminds him of his mom. She’s firm and strict but she also lets Bruce organize the front desk and play engineering games on the computer until he’s ready to go back to class. 

Today wasn’t any different. Today another student in Bruce’s class had threatened to poke Bruce’s eye out with a pen and before the teacher could deescalate the situation Bruce had pushed the kid up against the wall and had him in a choke hold. 

If this were any other school Bruce would be sitting in the back of a cop car right now, but this wasn’t any other school and currently Bruce was sitting on the floor in the space between the wall and the start of Hill’s desk kicking his foot against her desk repeatedly. 

Phil heard the pounding from his office down the hall. 

It was 12:20pm and group therapy started in 10 minutes, Phil might as well get started. 

“Hey, Bruce, want to help me set up for group?” 

“Fuck off,” Bruce kept kicking his foot against the desk, louder this time. 

“Try that again, please,” Phil responded, leaning his arms on Hill’s desk as she continued to work at her computer. 

Bruce scoffed, “Fuck,” kick “Off,” kick “Sir,” kick. 

Phil sighed and started walking back to his office, “You know that new quantum physics book was delivered to my office yesterday and I’ve been trying to decide if I should give it to you or Tony. I guess it’ll be Tony.” 

Phil was back in his office and setting up the chairs around the round table when Bruce finally walked into the room.

“Can I have the book please?” Bruce asked, looking down at the ground in the doorway to Phil’s office. 

“If you help me set up for group I’ll give it to you at the end of the day.” 

Bruce stood in the doorway for a little bit longer before grabbing a chair from the corner of the room and sliding it over to the table. 

\--

“Alright, sit down. Thor take out the headphones, Tasha hands off my bookshelf unless you’re going to reorganize it while you’re in here,” Phil grabbed a pencil out of Clint’s hand just as he was about to arc it across the room and put it in his back pocket. 

“Anyone want to talk about their week so far?” Phil asked, placing himself in the chair between Steve and Bruce and tapped his fingers on the table, waiting for someone to answer. 

“If no one volunteers I’ll volunteer you myself,” he added. 

“That means it’s not really volunteering,” Steve responded and Phil clapped him on the back.

“Thanks for volunteering, Steve! How’s your week been?” 

Steve groaned as Tony and Thor snickered from their side of the table. Phil continued to watch Steve until he finally answered, “It’s fine, we started a new project in art class on Monday.” 

“Yeah? What’s the project about?” Phil asked as he reached across the table and snatched another pencil out of Clint’s hand. Phil noticed they were the same pencils that he had given Clint this morning along with the new backpack and he sighed. Phil pointed the pencil at Clint in a silent response of ‘stop it, stop it now’ and Clint grinned at the table. 

Steve waited until the exchange was done and shrugged, “She wants us to do ink drawings of buildings in the United States that were built in the 1800s. I haven’t picked a building yet.” 

Phil nodded, “That sounds cool. Natasha, what about your week?” 

About ten minutes later everyone had finally said something about his or her week. 

“Okay, today I want us to talk about respect,” Phil said once Bruce finished his response, “Do you guys have anyone that you respect?” 

Tony scoffed and everyone else was silent for about a minute before Natasha spoke up, 

“You, I guess,” Phil smiled at her.

“Okay, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Why do you respect me?” 

Natasha shrugged and tapped her fingers on the desk, “You’re nice. You let us do what we want. You don’t yell.” 

“You don’t act like we’re stupid,” Clint. 

“Yeah, you know that we’re smart and you give us things,” Bruce. 

Phil nodded, “Okay. Now, do you think I respect you guys?” 

“We haven’t done anything to be worthy of respect,” Thor responded, “Respect is for adults.” 

Phil blinked, “Do you think maybe I let you do things you like and don’t yell at you because I respect you?” Thor just looked at Phil and shrugged his shoulders. 

“You don’t have to respect us though, adults have to be respected,” Bruce responded for him. 

Tony tossed a piece of paper across the table at Bruce, “Not if they’re assholes. Agent isn’t an asshole, that’s why he respects us,” Phil let the use of the nickname go and looked towards Steve if he had anything to add so far. 

“Everybody should get respect until they do something to get it taken away, I guess. Like, I respect people unless they say something mean about someone else. If you’re nice you should be respected, if you’re a bad person you shouldn’t be, even if you’re an adult,” Steve looked at Phil to see if he wanted more and when Phil nodded Steve leaned back in his chair and shrugged, “You should respect stuff too, like don’t steal someone else’s stuff or break anything that isn’t yours.” 

Clint twirled the pencil around his fingers; Phil was pretty sure he was about to throw it across the room before Steve spoke but Clint looked up to Steve and often listened to him more than anyone. 

“What about respecting yourself? What does that look like?” 

Natasha, “Doing things that are good for you. Sleeping enough, eating enough, not fighting with people.” 

The thing about Phil’s kids is, they could say all the right things, and they often do but getting them to actually say what they feel and what they thing is another, except for Tony, Tony just does what he wants. 

Natasha may have said the right thing just now but Phil knew better, Natasha had just gotten back from two days of suspension for fighting and last week Ivan, the soldier that took care of her, told him that she wasn’t sleeping most nights and wouldn’t tell him why. 

“Yeah, those are good things,” Phil said instead of calling her out, “What I’d like for you guys to do before we meet again is think of times when you’ve been respected by someone, or someone that you think respects you and I want you to be able to tell me why. I don’t have anything else planned for today but there’s still about 15 minutes left before I have to send you back to class, as long as you’re quiet you can stay in here, alright?” 

Natasha grabbed Clint’s arm and took him over to the couch in the corner turning around to test out her sign language skills (she had chosen to take Sign Language as her language class and Clint was surprisingly fluent for someone who stayed out of mainstream school for so long). 

Thor and Steve stayed at the table and opened up their backpacks to see if their homework was similar, Bruce stayed too and opened up a book Phil had seen him reading the day before and Tony lined himself up with the trashcan to start practice shooting rolled up pieces of paper into it. 

Phil unlocked his tablet and started checking his unread emails in his inbox, of which there were always too many and the kids, for once, did what he asked.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah! There are so many people reading this story! Or at least they're clicking on it... 
> 
> Hope you enjoy, let me know if you think I'm missing any tags, I'm pretty terrible at tagging things appropriately

Almost every kid at Marvel High School is diagnosed with something that requires a whole host of medication. From ADHD to Bipolar to any sort of anxiety disorder anyone could think of. The medications and prescription lists were endless. Even in Phil’s own therapy group there were enough medications to either make a killing on the streets or knock someone off their feet for at least a week. The only kids not diagnosed with anything in the group were Thor and Steve and that was mostly in part to Phil who refused to turn in his notes to the psychologist Marvel shared with 10 other public schools who was notorious for medicating students for things that could be easily fixed otherwise. 

Phil isn’t about to pretend he’s a medical doctor but sometimes he wished he could just stop the doctors toying around with the kid’s brains. Half the time kids would skip on their medicine for a few weeks, level out there, and then get forced back onto a drug regiment even worse than the one before. It happened all the time.

Phil isn’t one of those naturalists or whatever they’re called that thinks kids will be kids and should never be medicated but he’s pretty sure most of the school would be fine without their medications if the kids were taken care of better, both at school and at home. 

For example, according to a note given to the front office Tony had been skipping his medication for the past 3 weeks. Phil hadn’t even noticed. Sure Tony had to be escorted anytime he wanted to go anywhere on the likely chance that he’d try and take something apart, but that was typical. 

Since he had been caught skipping out on the drugs his father paid for, his father had hired a private nurse to ensure that Tony would take his morning doses and she would be at the school to observe and make sure he received he’s afternoon doses from the school nurse. 

Because of this, instead of sitting in class, Tony was slumped down in the couch in the corner of Phil’s office while Phil was in the closet next door looking for paper that his printer from the prehistoric age would accept. 

Tony had fallen asleep in his first class of the day as soon as he sat down in the seat and when one of his classmates decided to try and wake him up Tony’d almost broken the kid’s hand… before immediately falling back asleep. 

Phil came back into the room with his stack of printing paper and looked at Tony who was busy having a staring contest with the cup of pens on Phil’s desk, “I downloaded the new extension pack for minecraft, want to find the bugs in it after I print this packet?” 

Tony shrugged in response, “whatever.” 

Phil sat down at his desk and pulled up the file that he was about to print, glancing up at Tony for a second, “It’s only the second day you’ve been back on the meds, give it some time, you’ll even out.” 

Tony shrugged again, “whatever.” 

Phil sent the file to the printer and listened to it make enough racket that someone could probably hear it on the other side of the school and opened up the internet browser on his desktop, “You think I could get away with taking you guys on a field trip?”

Tony raised his eyebrows at the question, Phil had knocked him out of his apathy at least, “You mean The Avengers?” 

This time it was Phil’s turn to raise his eyebrows at Tony, “You’re still calling it that?” 

Tony shrugged inside his hoodie, “Working title,” he yawned, his face turned into his shoulder, “Someone would probably die if we went on a field trip.” 

“I’m going to bring it up in group next week, see what the others think. You’re gonna dislocate your shoulders if you keep shrugging them like that,” Phil finished, tossing a balled up extra piece of paper at Tony. 

Tony grinned and shrugged his shoulders again, “Yeah, whatever.” 

\--

Tony stayed in Phil’s office for two more class periods before he couldn’t stand the monotony that was Phil’s office and drug his feet down the hallway back to class. Phil had to admit; his office was pretty boring to everyone that wasn’t Phil. 

Most of his day was spent reading emails from school officials and filling out paperwork for grants or convincing people that yes, this school does need a full time social worker so no, Phil can’t go across town to work at another school for half the day. 

Students usually didn’t come to his office unless he called for them or they were skipping class, which was typical of his group therapy kids. 

Phil enjoyed it for the most part, the paperwork wasn’t so horrible and neither were the kids, really, once one figured out how to handle them. 

About an hour after Tony left the office Thor walked in while Phil was just starting to eat his lunch. Thor let his backpack slip from his shoulders and onto the ground before he laid face down on the couch against the wall. 

Phil took a forkful of salad into his mouth and scrolled down the webpage that listed free New York City Museums looking for someone to contact. 

Thor turned his head and stared at Phil’s desk, “I’m not skipping class. It’s my lunch period right now.” 

Phil nodded, “Did you get something to eat?” 

Thor mumbled something into the fabric of the carpet and then tried again, “No, it’s okay. I just wanted to sleep here for a few minutes. My father held a party last night and no one went home until this morning.” 

Thor’s father, as far as Phil knew, was only a nice guy if he liked you. Phil didn’t know if that was a Scandinavian thing or if it was part of the so-called charm he had as a skeevy underground mob boss.

Yes, Phil knew that Thor’s father was a mob boss. 

He wasn’t sure if Thor knew that he knew and Phil kind of wanted to keep it that way, everyone needed their secrets. 

“Sure, I’ll let you know when it’s time to go back,” Phil offered, Thor was already out cold on the couch. 

Phil gave Thor about 30 minutes before he shook the teen’s shoulders to wake him up and walked back to his desk, “You’ve got about 5 minutes before your next class starts I think.” 

Thor sat up slowly and scrubbed his face, “Thanks, Agent.” 

Phil groaned loudly, “Is Tony paying you guys to say that?” 

Thor let out a laugh and shook his head; “Everyone will keep saying it until you stop acting like it makes you upset.” 

“It does make me upset,” Phil mumbled as Thor started to gather up his things and stretch into a stand in front of the couch, “Hey, before you leave. Do you think the group could make it through an hour or two at a museum without breaking anything or killing anyone?” 

“You mean The Avengers?” Thor said, bringing his hands up to protect his face from the weak throw of a crumpled napkin from Phil’s lunch. 

“It might be fun. I promise not to break any ancient artifacts, if that sways your decision at all.” 

“It’s not you I’m worried about.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is angry and Steve's foster family is generally pretty decent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading! It's so exciting to see so many people excited about the stories I write!

Phil doesn’t like to rank his kids, but if he did rank them in terms of ‘most likely to survive in the real world purely based on lying and manipulation skills’ and ‘most likely to not do any of those things’ Natasha was the only one with a (near) perfect ability to do the first. 

The reason her score wasn’t perfect is because of things like this. 

Natasha had Intermittent Explosive Disorder, IED. Which meant at anytime and for any reason (at least according to Phil) Natasha could explode and when she lost control she could be more dangerous than Bruce and Thor combined.

When she still lived in Russia Ivan homeschooled her and handled her outbursts himself, or that’s what he said to Phil anyway. Phil didn’t trust many of the guardians/parents he spoke to, to be honest. Phil was pretty sure Natasha didn’t used to be this angry and that something had happened between Russia and America to make her this way, but she wasn’t talking and neither was Ivan. 

Natasha had been sent down to the front office after cussing out her teacher and trying to take a swing at them. Her preferred person in the office was Pepper and the hall monitor walked her directly to Pepper’s office. The room had been calm until Natasha swung at Pepper as well. Pepper did as she was trained to do when handling kids like that and held Natasha’s hands, wrists crossed so she couldn’t get free easily and called for Phil. 

Between the phone call and when Phil reached the office Natasha had taken them down to the floor and tried to swing her head back against Pepper. Now on the floor Pepper hand her legs folded under her, and she was behind Natasha, keeping her arms crossed in front of her via holding her hands in place. Her legs were still free but Tasha wasn’t much of a kicker. 

“Tasha, what happened?” Phil asked. When Natasha was pissed there wasn’t much talking to be had but she bucked her head back again, missing Pepper’s chin by centimeters. 

“We don’t want to have to medicate you but we will if you can’t calm down, is there someone at the school you want to talk to instead of us?” Natasha squirmed, trying to get her hands free, but Pepper was a strong lady and had done this many times before. 

“Do you want me to call Clint or Steve? Or Bruce, maybe?” 

“Steve.”

Phil nodded and stepped out of the room to ask Hill to call Steve down out of his class. 

Phil came back and stood at the doorway, listening to Pepper talk about her weekend, how she joined a running club and they ran almost 10 miles in the middle of a rain storm, while Natasha tried to worm her way out of Pepper’s grip by digging her fingernails into Pepper’s skin and pushing her head back. 

Steve showed up about five minutes later, his eyebrows up in question at Phil and then at Pepper and Natasha. 

Steve was the oldest of the group and even for Tony, who didn’t really like Steve all that much; he was the big brother to everyone. He was trustworthy and loyal and even sometimes joined the others in their mischief. He did yoga with Bruce, played on the baseball team with Thor, checked out books about engineering from the library for Tony when he wasn’t allowed into the building for various reasons, had started learning sign language for Clint and was the only person who could convince Natasha to talk about her feelings. 

Phil shrugged, most of the time he didn’t know what set off the kids until they told him themselves. Steve shrugged back and slid past Phil and sat on the floor to the left of Pepper and Natasha. 

“Hey Tash,” he offered. 

Natasha relaxed in Pepper’s grip but Pepper knew better than to fall for it and let go. Natasha sighed and glanced at Steve. 

“What happened?” 

“Mrs. Taxton is a bitch,” Natasha accentuated her opinion by pulling her arms again; trying to catch Pepper off guard but it didn’t work. 

“Taxton? Really?” Steve looked incredulous and Natasha groaned. 

“Yeah, Taxton! She asks too many questions,” Natasha responded.

“She teaches geography or whatever, right? What kind of questions could she possibly be asking?” 

Natasha and Steve then began their silent teen speak which consisted of glaring, shrugging, and raised eyebrows. Phil and Pepper knew better than to interrupt them. 

Five minutes later Natasha was sitting in Principal Fury’s office as he paced around behind his desk. Steve was sitting at the front desk next to Hill drawing on the back of an office referral, trying to hide the fact that he was looking over towards the closed office door every two seconds. Phil was making copies on the machine next to Hill’s desk and glanced over towards Steve and then over towards Fury’s office. 

“Do you know why she was really mad? She usually loves Mrs. Taxton.”

Steve shrugged and erased a line on the paper, “She never tells me anything, Mrs Taxton does have a way of getting under people’s skin when she wants to know something. Maybe she thought something was wrong.”

Steve, despite all his ‘good kid’ behavior, was loyal almost to the death. Which meant he probably did know what set Natasha off and he wasn’t telling for anything. Death before dishonor, or something like that, Phil guessed. 

A few minutes later Natasha and Principal Fury walked out of the office. Steve picked up his backpack and slid out of the office with Natasha as Fury stopped at the front desk to talk to Phil. 

Once the kids were out of the office Fury rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Detention for two weeks, an apology letter to Mrs. Taxton, and she’s suspended tomorrow and Wednesday.” 

Phil nodded, “She tell you what happened?”

Fury shrugged, “She never tells me anything.” 

\--

“Steven, would you pass the carrots, please?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve responded, passing the bowl down to table to his foster mother, Martha. 

Steve had been living with Martha and her husband for almost 3 months. Before that he was in a foster care facility for teenagers. Despite the rules and the quiet, this house was a lot better than the facility and years better than the other foster homes he’d been to in the past five years. 

Martha and her husband, Jon, had been fostering kids probably since before Steve was even born. They had two biological children who sometimes came to visit and liked to talk about all the different kids that came to their house when they were younger. 

“How was school, Steven?” Jon asked, putting some more salt on his potatoes. 

Steve finished chewing and nodded, “It was good, sir. Mr. Coulson, the social worker, is thinking about taking some of us to a museum soon for a field trip.” 

Martha made a face that Steve couldn’t decipher, “He’s sure the um… the other kids will behave themselves?” 

Anytime he told someone where he went to school, be it another kid or a grown up, they always said something like that. Martha and Jon almost didn’t take Steve because they knew the reputation the school carried. 

Steve understood, he felt like that too sometimes. When he walked into school freshman year, almost a foot taller and at least 50 extra pounds on him, he was looking for a fight. He didn’t want to go to the same school Bucky should’ve been going to also but couldn’t because Steve didn’t protect him. Even if he was looking for a fight, Steve never thought that the school would think he was that much of a threat. 

It only took two weeks for the school to request he be sent to Marvel preemptively. 

“He thinks we can handle it. Would I be allowed to go… if we went?” 

Martha smiled, “Of course, Steven. We know that you would behave yourself. Are you finished with your dinner?” 

Steve nodded and picked up his plate, picking up Jon’s finished plate as well and taking both of them to the kitchen before coming back to Martha for her plate. Steve always did the dishes, at every foster home and every facility they seemed to just know that he would do that chore. 

Steve finished cleaning the dishes as Martha and Jon continued talking at the table. 

“I’m done with the dishes, may I go up to my room, my homework is done,” Steve asked when he came back into the dinning room. 

“Of course Steven. Let us know when the trip to the museum is and we’ll sign the permission slip if it’s needed.” 

Steve nodded, “Thank you, Martha. Have a good night.” 

Steve pulled himself up the stairs and into his room, the room that used to be their oldest son’s, some of his things still on the shelves, and lay down on the bed. 

Steve wondered what they would say if he actually told them about the kids that he hung out with. Like how Thor cried that one time they watched A Walk To Remember in English class, or how Bruce got Steve a book about yoga last year for his birthday (which everyone else forgot), or how Natasha and Clint liked to bring the right kind of candy to group therapy and Tony tutored Steve in math sometimes. 

They probably wouldn’t believe him, anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful comments! I'm so glad people are enjoying this story! Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

Bruce and Tony sat across from each other in the back of the pre-calculus teacher’s classroom. 

At the beginning of the year the teacher realized that there was no way he was getting Bruce and Tony quiet unless he gave them harder material. Even though there were only 10 students in his class it was almost impossible to get them all to sit down, leave each other alone and do their work and Tony was one of the prime instigators of most of the distractions. Bruce helped sometimes; other times he went head on into a fight with any student that spoke. 

Once it was discovered that it was Tony and Bruce who were causing the most problems a plan while devised between Principal Fury and the teacher.   
While the teacher, Mr. Robbins, taught basic pre-calculus concepts to the rest of his eight students when they bothered to show up, Bruce and Tony sat in the back doing private individual lessons that Mr. Robbins borrowed from one of the local community colleges instead… when they bothered to show up. 

Tony generally enjoyed going to calculus mostly because Mr. Robbins knew it was best to just leave him alone to do his own thing. Since school started in August Tony had only skipped this class twice, and the two times he did skip the class Mr. Robbins had found Tony’s finished work slipped under the door of the classroom by the next morning. 

Unsurprisingly, that was not the case for any of Tony’s other classes. Many of his teachers would consider it lucky to see him two days in a row and a miracle to see him for more than that. 

Since Tony’s dad started really forcing the whole medication thing though Tony had been at school every day. He maybe wasn’t attending all his classes but he was there and while Howard was an asshole he was an asshole who knew when to pick his battles and when to silently wait until the right time to strike. 

Despite the fact that Tony would give both his arms up to find a way to get out of taking his meds, and you’d better believe he was trying to find a way, it was surprising how quickly he got through his work when he was forced to take them. Typically Tony and Bruce finished at the same time but Tony had been done for almost 10 minutes and Bruce was still working, the end of his pencil chewed up from his concentration. 

Tony looked over towards Mr. Robbins to see if he was paying attention to them and pulled out his phone to check the date. 

It was Wednesday, which meant group therapy, which also meant Tony would get a chance to annoy Agent some more. That was the only real reason Tony even bothered going to group therapy at all sometimes. It’s not like he actually talked about things that mattered, no one did, not really. 

This class lasted until 11:45 and it was almost 11:40. Maybe Tony could convince Mr. Robbins to let him go to the cafeteria to pick up a snack if he promised he’d go to his next class on time. 

“He’s not going to let you go anywhere,” Bruce muttered, his pencil hanging between his teeth. 

Tony gave Bruce the middle finger, “You don’t know that, Mr. Robbins!” 

Mr. Robbins finished the sentence he was saying and looked up to see Tony in the back of the classroom, “No, Tony. You can’t leave until the bell rings. If you’re bored go play something on one of the computers.” 

Mr. Robbins’ classroom was one of the only classrooms in the school that had computers for the students as well as the teacher. In his classroom there were five computers and Tony had only taken apart, and put back together perfectly thank you very much, one of them so far. 

Tony sighed and drug himself dramatically and loudly to the computer closest to him, “I’ve already beaten all the games on these computers though!” 

“Well that sounds like a personal problem to me, Mr. Stark. Maybe you could find some harder games and then find a way to get the school to pay for them, huh?” 

Tony definitely did not finish his calculus class directing a vulgar hand gesture at his teacher, definitely not. 

\--

“Where’s Natasha?” Bruce asked when they walked into Phil’s office. Clint and Thor were getting chairs from across the room to put at the table and Steve was sitting at Phil’s desk on the computer while Phil was out in the hallway talking with Sitwell. Tony walked in ahead of Bruce, obviously not concerned, and dumped himself into a chair. 

“She tried to beat up a teacher and got suspended,” Clint answered taking a chair from Thor. Bruce blinked and then shrugged, tossing his backpack onto the couch. 

“She gets in more trouble than I do and I’m the bad apple?” Tony raised his eyebrows and Clint shrugged. 

“You’re the bad apple because you cost people money. Natasha has yet to reset the entire school intranet system to the year 1903 and cost the city of New York 2 million dollars,” Phil responded as he came into the room, yanking Clint’s hood off his head and giving a pointed look at Thor who looked dangerously close to aiming a chair at Clint’s head. 

“She’ll be back tomorrow, if you’re so concerned, Stark,” Clint teased, dodging Tony’s fist and sitting down on the other side of the table where Steve had now moved to. 

“Alright, alright. Sit, all of you,” Phil sat down on the other side of Steve and waited for Thor to take a seat. 

“I know I’ve talked to a few of you about this, but now I’m finally allowed to announce it. Next week, we’re all going to the Museum of History for a field trip. Sitwell is coming with us also… because Principal Fury doesn’t trust me with you guys alone,” 

“Do we get to miss class?” Tony interrupted, sitting up a little straight in his chair. 

“Yes, for the morning you will. That doesn’t mean you can skip the rest of the day. That goes for all of you,” Phil gave everyone at the table a serious look, hoping that at least one or two of them would return to their afternoon classes. 

“Is Tash coming?” Steve asked, looking up from his notebook where he was currently sketching little doodles. 

“If Principal Fury believes her remorse is legitimate after today than it’s a strong maybe,” Phil answered, standing up and going to the printer, “Here are the permission slips for the field trip, if you give them back to me by Friday I’ll let you guys have a free hour when you’re with me the next time.” 

Phil passed out the sheets of paper to each of the kids and then sat back down, “Now, we were going to keep talking about respect this week, right?”

\--

“I don’t have anyone to sign this,” Clint mumbled to Phil after everyone had left the room. He was still holding the permission slip for the field trip, like he was angling to give it back to Phil. 

“What do you mean?” Phil asked, looking up from his tablet and raising his eyebrows. 

Clint sighed, “There’s only like 10 adults at the shelter and none of them like me. I don’t think they’d sign it.”

Phil understood. Once a kid was in the system it didn’t take long for them to get labeled as a ‘bad kid’ and no matter how well behaved they tried to be, everyone knew that label was attached to them. Barely two weeks into the school year, when Phil had just put Clint on his list, he was already getting notes from the supervisors at Clint’s shelter. 

Clint is hiding food in his backpack and under his pillow. 

Clint climbed into the rafters and wouldn’t come down and we had to get a ladder and pull him down. 

Clint keeps taking his hearing aids and turning away from us when we talk to him. 

Even if the supervisors didn’t like Clint they were still required to let Clint do ‘normal kid’ things and none of the things he had done at the shelter were even really that bad, not bad enough to keep the kid from going on a simple field trip anyway. 

“How about this. Tonight you ask at least one of the adults and if they say no bring it back to me tomorrow and we’ll work something out,” Phil waited for Clint to nod, “You’re gonna love this museum. It has a bunch of stuff you’re allowed to touch instead of just staring at things.” 

Clint smiled at the permission slip, “Sure, Agent.”


	6. Chapter 6

Natasha had about ten minutes before Steve and Thor would be downstairs to walk to school with her. It’s not that Natasha couldn’t protect herself on the way to school it’s just that it was easier to walk with two boys that looked like they could probably crush someone with their pinkies. 

Out of everyone in the group Steve lived the farthest away. His commute to school started almost two hours before the first bell rang. For a while Natasha thought Steve lived on the same street as her and that’s why they ended up taking the same path to school but one time someone in the office left their computer on when Natasha was in there looking for extra paper and she found the electronic files on everyone in the group. 

Natasha made a point to at least walk with Steve the last ten blocks of his journey every day. 

Thor lived two streets back, deeper into the neighborhood, but he was always up with spending more time talking about sports with Steve and he liked to try and speak Russian with Natasha as they jumped over puddles and sidestepped piles of trash. 

Natasha opened the silver wrapping of her pop-tarts and sat down at the kitchen table. She could hear Ivan getting ready down the hall and hoped she could get herself to the door before he was finished. 

Ivan wasn’t bad, not as bad as he could be, but he was, in Tony’s terminology, an asshole. 

He liked to punish her for little things, not cleaning the dishes well enough, speaking too loudly, setting fire to his bathroom. Small things. 

Ivan punished in weird ways too. Because of the suspension thing Natasha was still allowed to go on the field trip to the museum today but she wasn’t allowed to talk out loud at home for a week. She’d already broken that rule and gotten a swift backhand to the face. Natasha wasn’t in the mood to replay that event any time soon. 

As she finished her pop-tarts and threw the trash away, Ivan walked into the kitchen, opening up the fridge and looking into it before settling on a banana sitting on the counter. 

Natasha gave him a glance but continued over to the doorway to put her shoes on. Ivan leaned against the counter as Natasha tied up her laces. 

“I expect to hear only good reports from that social worker today,” he muttered around the piece of banana in his mouth. Ivan spoke perfect English and really only spoke Russian around his friends or when he was pissed at Natasha for something. 

Natasha nodded as she finished her second shoe and stood up to get her backpack from off the couch. 

“I’ll pick you up at the dance studio at seven,” Ivan made a shooing motion with his hands, Ivan-speak for ‘get out before I find something else to say’ and Natasha nodded and made sure not to slam the door on her way out. 

Thor was leaning against the gate that was supposed to keep people without a code from coming up the stairs and into the apartments of the building but everyone knew it was broken, except for Thor apparently. 

“You know the gate is busted, right? You could stand inside,” Natasha muttered, she didn’t think Ivan had that good of hearing but she also wouldn’t be surprised if he did. 

“I know. I just like to stand here as an imposing figure, it’s good practice.” 

“Good practice for what?” Steve called from about 10 feet away and closing. 

“Thor’s training to be a bouncer when he grows up,” Natasha offered, starting to walk down the street towards school as Steve and Thor fell into step behind her. 

“I thought you wanted to be social worker like Agent?” Steve prodded and Natasha definitely didn’t smile when Thor attempted to put him in a headlock as they kept moving down the street. 

\--

The field trip was going just fine, thank you very much. Sitwell was a lot better at catching things before they got out of hand, unlike Phil. 

Sitwell had already forcefully separated Tony and Natasha on the subway ride to the museum as their threats to each other became increasingly less funny and more dangerous. He’d also threatened to hold hands with anyone who ran down the street once they stepped above ground and began the two blocks to the building. 

Phil was pretty sure Sitwell used to be a secret service agent or something in his past life. While Phil jumped from student to student as they wandered the first room in the museum, Sitwell stood in one of the corners with his hands crossed in front of him with a glare that somehow pointed in all directions. 

Phil was currently walking from Bruce, who was staring at a rusted helmet, to Clint who had the most wistful look Phil had ever seen on someone under the age of at least 30. 

As Phil got closer he saw that Clint was looking at a very ancient bow next to a similarly ancient bundle of arrows. While Phil hadn’t lied about there being things to touch at the museum this room wasn’t one of them and Clint obviously looked like he wished that wasn’t the case. 

“I know how to use that,” Clint said as he moved to look at the items from the other side of the case they were enclosed in. 

Phil turned to give him a look and Clint shrugged, “My brother and I met these two guys, Jacques and Buck, after we left the children’s home. They taught us how.” 

Phil thought maybe he should be writing this down or something. Clint was picked up by the NYPD in the summer. It was November now, which meant DCS and everyone else had been playing a 5 month long game where they only had half the information and Clint was the one holding all the cards. Clint had sat through meeting after meeting with social workers, therapists, psychologists and police officers and still hadn’t said anything about what happened after he and his brother, Barney, had left the children’s home when he was eight. 

They knew Barney was in jail in upstate New York, that’s how they’d even known to start looking for Clint in the first place, but he wasn’t saying much either, just that ‘they did alright’. 

Phil wasn’t about to shut down this avenue of information. 

“You any good?” Phil asked instead. 

Clint set his hand on the plaque that listed the information about the bow, “I’m the best,” Clint laughs, “You think we could have an archery club or something at school?” 

Phil shrugged, “Have to talk to Principal Fury about that, he might be interested.” 

Clint nodded and slid away from the bow and arrows, towards a sword still in its sheath, and Steve who was intently reading the information put in a little square on the wall. 

Phil took a look around the room to make sure everything was still intact and then ambled over to Sitwell. 

“You think someone should tell Clint that we knew where his brother is?” Phil asked as Sitwell leaned against the free space of wall. Sitwell shrugged. 

“He probably already knows that we know, just like Thor probably knows that we know about his dad. You know the kids aren’t as stupid as the system wants us to believe.” 

“Clint said that he and his brother know how to shoot arrows, that two men taught them how.” 

Phil was still processing the tiny scrap of information but it could honestly mean anything. There’s a lot of space between Iowa and New York and a lot of bad people who could’ve done anything with two young kids. 

“His brother wasn’t taken in for anything violent, right?”

“Burglary I think,” Phil offered, making sure none of the students had wandered too close to them. 

Sitwell laughed behind his palm, “Hey, maybe they joined a circus or something.” 

Phil definitely didn’t punch his coworker as he began to herd the students to the room next door that had more interactive and less easy to break items.

\--

Natasha tucked her foot under herself on the bench in the lobby of the dance studio. Ivan was a good 25 minutes late but that wasn’t incredibly uncommon. Her ballet teacher was at the front desk finishing up whatever it was dance teachers did when they weren’t teaching as Natasha tapped her fingers on the bench to a song she had stuck in her head since jazz class directly after school. 

“Do you need a ride, sweetie?” Natasha wasn’t used to having a ballet teacher who was so nice. Mrs. Dustin was from Florida and Natasha was sure she’d never heard her say anything mean before. It always made Natasha’s skin itch. 

“No ma’am. Ivan is coming for me in a few minutes.” 

Mrs. Dustin nodded and stood up from the desk, wrapping herself up in her coat, “Would you like me to wait outside with you? I have to lock up in a few minutes.” 

Natasha shook her head, “It’s fine, he’s on his way." Natasha lifted up her phone as if to imply that he had texted her, "I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Of course you will,” Mrs. Dustin smiled and Natasha tried to match it before she walked out the door and looked around the street, one more glance to check for Ivan before she straightened her dance bag and began walking down the street. 

Ivan liked to cut things close but 30 minutes late meant he probably wasn’t coming. Was probably already home with a lit cigar and a bottle of wine. 

Natasha was only bothered by the fact that there was no one there to walk her home.


	7. Chapter 7

Thor stopped in the middle of the stairwell of his apartment building and listened to the drunken shouting coming from behind the door of the apartment he shared with his father. 

He should’ve stayed at Jane’s house longer instead of bowing out after they worked on their science homework but he didn’t want her family to have to make extra for dinner. He already imposed on them enough being Jane’s ‘bad influence boyfriend’. 

Thor hated when his father brought his friends over, they were always drunk, angry or both. Before his mother, Frigga, and his brother, Loki, died they always met at the bar down the street but now that it was just Thor his father didn’t feel any need to hide what was going on. 

Thor’s dad was the boss of the Scandinavian Mafia in New York City. It wasn’t anything to the level of the Italians, Russians or the Irish but he was still a feared man. Thor’s mother was the perfect example of a Mob Boss’s wife, she did her part to make sure everyone was safe and happy and that no one would come near the empire Odinson Senior had built. Thor’s father ran the neighborhood that spanned almost 10 city blocks, always had and always will, until he dies and puts Thor in his place. 

Maybe. 

Thor knew that everyone in the neighborhood had been looking at him funny since his family was torn apart. Everyone in the city has different ideas and stories for why the Loki and Frigga were murdered. The cops thought it was Thor’s father, his father’s inner circle thought it was a retaliation hit from the Italian mob after a sour arms deal, Thor’s father thought it was someone on the inside and when he was really drunk, he thought it was Thor. 

Thor wouldn’t know. He wasn’t home. He wishes he had been because maybe he could’ve stopped it. 

Thor sighed and walked up the rest of the steps and pushed open the door. 

“THOR, my boy!” his father yelled out from behind a cloud of cigar smoke. The smell of vodka, sweat and nicotine spilled out into the hallway and Thor coughed behind his hand. 

Instead he smiled at his father, “Father, don’t you think the neighbors will want to be able to listen to their own families speak to each other eventually?” 

“My son,” he said, holding his arm out to call Thor closer, “ever the considerate one. We’re celebrating! An informant has given us some wonderful news!” 

There was always wonderful news in his father’s world. Someone from the Italian mob had died, a drugs smuggling operation had gone smoothly, a rat had been caught red handed with information or money. Nothing Thor really considered positive news, but to each his own or something like that. 

Thor pushed a smile from his lips again anyway, “What’s the news?” Thor walked towards his father, eyeing his second in command as he got to take the seat at the dinning table next to his father instead of him. 

“We’ve finally discovered who killed your mother and Loki,” he said, setting his cigar down on the ashtray, “I’ve always known it was someone on the inside, someone trying to push me out and now there is finally proof.” 

Thor tried to hide his disappointment. His father was never going to let go of the idea of finding out who killed his wife and (adopted) son. Thor was probably never going to get over it either, but at least Thor knew not to talk about it, or go searching for answers. People in this neighborhood just died sometimes, and that meant eventually someone in the Odinson family was going to die. 

Thor just wanted to move on with his life and not worry about it. Finding out who killed them wouldn’t bring them back. 

“That’s um… that’s great, Father. Who was it?” 

“I’m not sure you would know them, it was before I brought you closer to the fold. His name is Barton.” 

Barton? 

The only Barton Thor knows is Clint Barton, the squirrely freshman from the stupid therapy group that Phil (Agent) Coulson runs. 

Clint would’ve been 11 or 12 when this happened, is that even old enough to kill someone with a knife? 

“Son, you look frightened… this is good news! We can finally seek reparations for what has happened to our family. Barton is in prison upstate and many of my best men are at the prison, they will see too it that justice is done.” 

Thor just shook his head. Prison? 

So that meant it wasn’t Clint, it was his father or his brother or someone. 

But did Clint know? 

Had Clint been pretending this whole time that he looked up to Thor and sought him out for advice and played pranks on him? 

“No, of course… that’s good news. I’m um… I’m going to go to bed early tonight though, I have to go to school early tomorrow.”

Thor slid out of the chair and edged himself through the men down the hallway to his room. 

Thor wasn’t one for revenge but he couldn’t help be hope that the Barton that was in prison would suffer. It was only fair. 

If Thor has to suffer the lose of his family, so does Clint. 

\--

“You know what’s crazy?” Phil muttered, as he shuffled some paperwork across his desk looking for the pen Pepper had given him at the staff meeting the other day. It was one of those weird pens that had all the four ink colors and allowed you to flip through them at the top. Phil liked pens that he could futz around with and not get in trouble. 

Thor glanced up from where he was fiddling with his phone on the couch and raised his eyebrows. 

“What?” he replied, zero inflection and interest in his voice. 

“Not a single one of you have gotten in trouble since we went to the museum. Skipped a couple classes, sure. But no one’s gotten in trouble. Until now. So. Speak.” 

Thor shrugged, “Nothing. Clint’s a little shithead, that’s all.” 

The museum trip was on Wednesday of last week, it was currently Tuesday afternoon and Phil hadn’t gotten a single call until this one. The call that said Thor had shoved Clint into the lockers and punched him in the head, leading to a possible concussion and two busted hearing aids. 

“Clint isn’t that much of a shithead, give me a better answer or I’m going to hand you over to Fury,” Phil looked under a notebook and found his pen, giving Thor another glance before plopping it down in his pen cup. 

Thor reorganized his limbs on the couch and slid lower into the seat. 

Phil sighed and slumped down in a seat by the table and folded his hands together on the edge of table he had near him.

“If you don’t tell me why you beat Clint up in the next five minutes I’m gong to hand you over to Fury and he’s probably going to expel you or give you over to the cops and I know you think you don’t care right now, but trust me, you’ll care.”

Thor gave a sidelong glance at the apparently very interesting arm of the couch and sat in silence while Phil stared him down for the first two of his five minutes until he spoke. 

“I know Clint lives in that shelter two blocks over but he’s got like… real family somewhere right?”

Phil couldn’t hazard a guess as to why Thor would care about that now after smashing the kid into a locker but if this got him closer to an answer and farther from an arrest for assault he’d do his best to help. 

“Yeah. A brother. Both his parents are dead, he’s told you that.” 

Thor nodded and picked at the hem of his t-shirt and waited out another minute on his clock, “Where’s his brother?”

Phil raised his eyebrows, “I can’t tell you that, privacy laws and rights of minors and all that. What does his brother have to do with anything?” 

Thor squeezed the bit of shirt he was holding in his fist and swiped his other hand over his face, “I. My father. He was talking the other night. He said some stuff… a lot of stuff. And… I think. I think his brother, Clint’s brother, killed my mom and Loki.”

Phil leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, “You’re sure? I mean, there’s probably more Barton’s in this city than you think…” Phil offered but Thor cut him off,

“No. There’s only one Barton that’s been around the family my father said so. I couldn’t just stand back and let nothing happen, what if Clint knows and he’s just been lying this whole time?” 

Thor had his hands balled up in his fists in his lap and Phil put his hand on Thor’s knee, making sure he was looking Phil in the eyes before he spoke. 

“Look. I know my words don’t mean much but I promise you Clint doesn’t know, he hasn’t seen his brother in years,” Phil waited before Thor gave him a slight nod, “I’m going to go talk to Fury and you’re going to stay in here, or at least in the office for the rest of the day, okay?” 

Thor nodded again, “Okay. Can you tell Clint I’m sorry?” 

Phil stood up and pushed in his chair, “No, but you can when you see him in group tomorrow.”

Thor gave Phil the a most anguished look but nodded anyway and slid himself back into the couch to glare at the carpet. 

Phil tries not to be too overdramatic but sometimes his job really sucked.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter begins right around the same time Thor is in Phil's office after the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all have been so nice! I responded to a few comments but I ran out of nice things to say that wouldn't sound redundant and boring so here is a blanket, thank you very much for reading this story! I'm so happy!

Bruce walked into the office and smiled at Ms. Hill, she was sitting at her desk tapping her pen on the side of her keyboard, “Ms. Hill, do you have notebook paper?” 

Bruce leaned over counter in front of her desk and set his chin on his hands when Ms. Hill nodded, “Yep, I do. Let me finish this email first and then I’ll get you some from the workroom,” she looked up at Bruce and smiled, “Having a good day?” 

Bruce nodded and futzed around with the papers on the ledge of the counter and shrugged, “Yeah, it’s been fine. My cousin took me to a yoga class before school today,” Bruce continued straightening and de-straightening the papers and pamphlets and gave a glance around the office. 

He saw Clint sitting in Sitwell’s office. Sitwell didn’t seem too concerned with the student in his office because he was still typing away on his computer as Clint sat in the chair on the opposite side of the room facing away from the window. 

Ms. Hill clicked on the last few keys and hit send on the email and stood up to go into the workroom behind her for the paper. 

“Why’s Clint in the office?” Bruce asked, watching as she opened a cabinet and pulled out a few leaflets of paper. 

“He and Thor were involved in a fight earlier I think,” she smiled at Bruce, “I wouldn’t worry about it, it’s under control now. Here’s your paper.” 

Bruce held out his hand and took the stack of paper but instead of leaving the office he walked over to Sitwell’s and knocked on the doorframe of the open door. Sitwell looked up briefly but Clint continued staring down at the notebook in his hands. 

“Hey, Bruce. You need something?” 

Bruce directed his glance at Clint, “Can Clint and I talk?” 

Bruce and Clint weren’t really all that close. Bruce wasn’t really all that close with anyone but he couldn’t help but want to at least check up on the other people in the group. The idea of therapy group was totally stupid but at least now Bruce had people that he could tentatively call his friends and he was pretty sure friends checked up on each other when something went wrong. 

Sitwell nodded as he went back to the work he was doing on the computer and Bruce sat down in the chair next to Clint. 

The younger student was doing what all kids did in notebooks when they were probably supposed to be working on something else. He was doodling pinwheels and things like looked like dogs and arrows were flying around the page. 

Bruce bumped his elbow into Clint’s side and Clint looked up briefly before tapping his ear, “Can’t hear you, Thor cracked up both my hearing aids.” 

Bruce blinked. Sometimes he forgot that Clint couldn’t hear. He was really good at reading lips and his speech was almost perfect. Bruce wondered if someone beat those kinds of things into him, Bruce knows a lot of things were beaten into him. 

Bruce was pretty sure he was the only person that Clint told about what he was doing before he ended up at the school. He didn’t talk much about the past but he’d talked enough to Bruce one day on the stairs of the school that Bruce understood why he kept things so close, even with Natasha. 

Clint obviously wasn’t on board with the idea of reading someone’s lips today so Bruce got a pen out of the cup on Sitwell’s desk and borrowed a sheet of paper from the stack that was supposed to be going to his Physics teacher. 

_You okay? Hill said that you and Thor got in a fight._

Bruce slid the paper on top of Clint’s notebook and Clint shrugged about a minute later, “Yeah. Thor got pissed about something and I was in the way, it’s whatever,” Clint was almost whispering but Bruce was pretty sure it was because he couldn’t hear himself and he didn’t want to talk too loud and annoy someone in the office. 

Bruce nodded and took the paper back. Even if Clint was lying Bruce know all about the costly mistake of getting in the way of someone who was angry.

 _Want to walk home together today? My cousin works across the street from where you stay._

Clint read the note and went back to filling in a circle in the corner of the page, “Sure.” 

\--

If Clint had to pick a favorite person it the group besides Natasha it was probably Bruce. It used to be Agent but it was kind of a cop out to have the teacher be the favorite of the group, Clint knew that. It also used to be Tony but Tony was currently yelling at Clint and Bruce while they walked down out of the school as he sat in the back of the black escalade that his father sent for him to make sure he actually came back home after school. Tony also ratted Clint out on Monday when he was trying to draw a fake hickey on the back of someone else’s neck in the cafeteria. 

Luckily for Clint he couldn’t even hear Tony over the dull buzz of the street noise. Even if his hearing aids hadn’t been broken he probably wouldn’t be able to pick out the words anyway. Bruce wasn’t acting like Tony was actually saying anything of substance so he kept walking down the sidewalk past the school. 

Bruce was probably Clint’s favorite because he left well enough alone and knew how important secrets were. Even though Bruce had spent the majority of his life in the care of an adult, at least according to Clint’s knowledge, that didn’t mean he didn’t understand how life was for Clint. 

There was no reason to let the teachers and people at the school know what had been going on in Clint’s life since his parents died just like there was no reason for the people at the school to know that Bruce still wanted to go back to his old school and blow it up. 

Clint’s pretty sure he’s the only person who knows that about Bruce. 

Clint’s not scared though. Much bigger things exist in the world that Clint is acutely more afraid of than a teenager who wants to get rid of people who probably deserve it. 

Bigger things like Thor knowing about his brother. That’s the only thing Thor mentioned before the buzz of the hearing aid batteries turned into a squeal and his head was up against the locker earlier. 

Thor said that this was ‘payback for what your father did’ and since Clint is 105% sure that his father is dead it had to have been Barney. Whatever Barney had done to Thor it was bad enough that Thor didn’t find the need to even vaguely accept Clint as a friend anymore. 

After Clint and Barney left the children’s home they caught the first bus out of Des Moines that took them to New York. Chicago was too close, Indianapolis was too boring, and Philadelphia was too cold. 

Barney didn’t have any money to pay the landlord when they arrived and he was easily caught out as too young to do any type of work that would keep them off the streets. The landlord that finally let them rent a unit told Barney he could work for his boss. Barney was smart enough to know that he didn’t mean anything legal by it but he was dumb enough to take the offer anyway. Barney started working for a large group of loud men that drank and cussed and played around with guns in the apartment while Clint was trying to sleep. 

Clint didn’t go to school while they were in New York the first time because Barney didn’t want the system to find them but the landlord had a wife who was Deaf like Clint and she tried to teach him things that she knew. A Deaf person who used sign language was a new thing for Clint; he didn’t even think he’d ever met a Deaf person before Candice. Before his parents died he took speech lessons and the adults at the Children’s home beat it into Clint that if he couldn’t speak and act hearing he wasn’t worth anything. 

Candice taught him how to sign everything and helped him with reading and math and she also taught Clint about what his brother was doing. His brother was working for the Mafia, not like the guys Clint saw on TV but it was close enough. 

Sometimes Barney came home with blood splattered on his shirt and pants but most of the time he just came home drunk and ignored Clint when he tried to ask what he did during the day. 

Then there were the years with Buck and Jacques that Clint wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to talk about, even with people like Bruce and Natasha. 

Clint didn’t know that Barney went back to the Mafia after that; he just knew that Barney didn’t want to be around him anymore. 

Maybe it was time to pay Barney a visit at the prison. See if he would tell him why Thor was looking for payback for something Clint didn’t do. 

Clint looked up from his thoughts and noticed that he and Bruce were standing in front of the shelter, out of the way of the other people on the sidewalk but not yet in the gate. 

Bruce raised his eyebrows, “You okay?” the easiest sentence for Clint to lip-read. 

Clint nodded, “Yeah, thanks for the walk, see you tomorrow?” 

Bruce nodded back, “Yeah, see you then.” 

Clint watched Bruce cross the street and walk into the office building, giving it a few good minutes to look like he was messing around with the gate or the things in his backpack before he started back towards the school. 

Tony was the only person Clint knew that had a car and wouldn’t ask too many questions. Maybe it was time to let Tony get back onto Clint’s favorite list.


	9. Chapter 9

It wasn’t hard to find out where Tony lived, Clint just looked for the tallest, most ostentatious skyscraper in Manhattan. 

It also helped that his dad put STARK in giant blue letters that someone could probably see from space. 

Clint wasn’t sure what floor of the building the Stark family actually lived on but he was pretty sure he could talk himself through security. Clint pushed open the glass doors of the lobby and stared at all the people in fancy suits and pencil skirts that were walking around and tried not to think that his shoes were going to leave scuff marks on the marble floor. 

Clint walked carefully over to the desk that looked like it would provide information and smiled his best ‘I belong here’ smile at the man when he looked up from his computer screen. 

“How --- -- help you ---?” 

Mustaches were going to be the death of Clint. 

“Hi, I’m Clint Barton. I’m one of Tony’s classmates, he left something at school today and I thought I’d drop it off for him?” 

The man nodded and said something that could’ve been ‘wait one moment’ but also could’ve been ‘mating of the (insert most animal names here)’ if Clint didn’t have the context of their previous encounter and picked up the phone on his desk. 

Clint took a few peppermints while the man was distracted with the phone and stuffed them into his pocket. He looked back when the man hung up the phone. 

“Tony’s father --- --- --- drop it --- here ---- ---- get it ---“ 

Clint shook his head and smiled Steve’s ‘aw shucks’ smile that he’d been practicing when he was alone in the bathroom at the shelter, which was rare but he thought it played off well. 

“I just remembered, Tony said he would help me with a science project, it’s due tomorrow and you know how good Tony is at that, have him ask Tony I’m sure he remembers.” 

The man sighed and picked up the phone again. This time the conversation was much more terse from the looks of it but Clint continued to hold the smile on his face until the man hung up and called out for someone, giving them a two-finger ‘come closer’ wag. 

The man that came forward was a hulking giant human. Like, probably the size Thor could be if he continued working out at the pace he had set. Clint would know, he’s felt his punch; no one punches like that without training. 

The security guard led Clint to one of the four elevators and allowed him to enter first, pressing the button for the 52nd floor before assuming the common security guard position, his hands clasped in front of him. Clint leaned against the railing at the back of the elevator until the guard turned around and glared at him. Clint slowly peeled himself off the wall and stuffed his hands in his pockets. 

Soon the elevator doors opened and the man led Clint down the hallway towards the door at the end. He knocked on the wood and gave Clint an annoyed look before walking back to the elevator. 

Clint rocked on his feet a little bit while he waited for the door to open. When it did, it was Tony, holding a washcloth to his nose. Clint raised his eyebrows and stepped into the room when Tony glared and muttered, “Don’t ask.” 

Clint tried not the gawk at the size of the apartment. It must’ve covered the whole floor it was on. The living room itself was probably bigger than the any room Clint had ever seen. Clint could just barely see the start on a kitchen on the other side of the wall. 

Tony shut the door behind him and sauntered towards the kitchen, sitting down on one of the stools and propping his elbows up on the counter. Clint swept his eyes over the main area once more and then made his way over to the kitchen as well. 

Clint noticed the head of someone else leaning over the couch. His mouth was wide open and he was drooling onto the fabric of the arm. There was an empty bottle of some fancy wine on the floor next to him, knocked over and slowly dripping liquid onto the carpet. 

Even though Clint noticed, he pretended not to, and continued to the kitchen to sit down across from Tony. 

“I don’t forget things at school,” Tony started, pulling the wash cloth away to reveal what Clint already had guessed was a bloody nose, Clint forced himself to not look back at the man passed out on the couch. 

“And I definitely never said I would help you with anything,” Tony continued. 

Clint nodded, “Had to get myself up here somehow, didn’t I? Don’t think ‘I’m in Tony’s therapy group’ would fly for moustache man at the front desk.” 

Tony shrugged, and reached over to run the washcloth under the tap water since his nose had stopped bleeding. 

“So why are you really here?” 

“I need a ride, you’re the only person I know who’s got a car.” 

Tony scoffed, “A ride? To where?” 

Clint knocked his feet against the bar of the stool and folded his hands in his lap, “North Buffalo Penitentiary?” 

“Are you turning yourself in for a crime or something?” 

Clint gave Tony a sarcastic laugh and kicked the counter, “My brother’s locked up there. I need to go see him.” 

Tony gave Clint the ‘are you crazy’ look and squeezed out the extra water from the washcloth. His nose didn’t look like it was out of place, which was lucky for Tony, but there were a few places were the blood was drying to his skin. 

Tony glanced over towards the living room and back to the washcloth, “Yeah, a good old-fashioned family reunion? What’s in it for me?” 

Clint poked his thumb back at the man on the couch, “You get to get away from him for a day or two, assuming he’s the one who broke your face.” 

Tony gave Clint and dirty look and Clint held his hands up in surrender, “I’m not gonna tell anyone, you know I won’t, not unless you want me to.” 

Tony stared at the man on the couch and thought for a moment while Clint picked at his jeans, giving Tony his space. Tony’s almost in his hand, Clint can tell, and the fact that he knows Clint won’t talk no matter what is helping a lot. 

“Okay, but you’re paying for food.” 

Clint nodded and jumped up out of the seat, grabbing his backpack off the floor. He followed Tony a few steps behind as the older boy wandered down a hallway and turned into what Clint assumed was his room. He picked up his school backpack and turned around, going back to the living room and picking up a set of keys off the table. He stopped at looked down at the man, now Clint assumed was probably his father, and nodded to himself. 

“Okay, lets go, you have the address?” 

\--

Clint had the address of the prison written deep within his notebook that luckily hadn’t been stolen from the other kids yet. He tore out the paper and handed it to Tony as they walked down the back stairwell of the building to avoid attention. He also handed over the $40 he’d lifted off some businessman near the entrance of Stark Tower so Tony could get food whenever he wanted. 

Tony scoffed when he handed over the money but it took it anyway, $40 was probably chump change to Tony but that could probably buy Clint an extra meal a day for a month if he spaced it out right. Whatever. 

They finally reached the bottom of the stairwell, two floors under the building and Clint stopped to breathe few for a minute. It may be easier to go down stairs than up stairs but 54 flights of anything was a bit too much. 

After both the teenagers caught their breath Tony led them to an nondescript dark blue Honda in the corner of the garage, he turned around and started walking backwards so Clint could read his lips, “This is the car my dad uses when he doesn’t want to be spotted by the press, no one will notice it’s us.”

Clint skipped forward and tossed his backpack in the backseat before getting in the passengers side. 

Tony hoped into the driver’s side and put the keys in the ignition. He pressed the power button on the GPS and once it was warmed up and showing the home page he typed in the address and pulled up the list directions instead of the map directions. Tony handed Clint the paper back and said, “Copy down those directions, we can’t use the GPS or the CIA will probably track us down or something knowing my dad.” 

Clint nodded and pulled out a pen from his bag. He made quick work of copying down the directions. Tony had opened his door again and was pulling apart the plastic sectioning in the door, “There’s a tracker in the car,” Tony explained once Clint had finished copying the directions and was staring at Tony, “You got a phone?” Tony asked, once he pulled out a little box attached to a set of wires. 

Clint shook his head and Tony got back in the car, pulling the GPS off the dashboard and chucking it out of the car, “Good, they’d try and use that too. I disabled all the GPS on my phone so that should be fine if you need to call anyone, or your brother’s got friends.” 

Clint shook his head again and shrugged, “Just as long as we get there, I’m good.” 

Tony pulled out of the parking space and sped through the parking garage. The attendant at the front seemed to recognize the car and let them through with a wave; Tony didn’t even have to roll his tinted windows down. 

Tony weaved through the traffic with ease and soon they were on the interstate. Clint leaned his head back against the headrest and sighed, letting his eyes close for a few seconds before he turned his head to look at Tony. Tony looked wide-eyed and happier than Clint had ever seen him before. He was muttering to himself in surprise and Clint understood the feeling. Sometimes the idea of getting away from it all felt impossible, Tony probably didn’t trust it. 

Tony grinned to himself and turned up the volume on the music that was playing, loud enough now that even Clint could hear it and also feel the bass pounding the seats. 

Clint nodded to himself and curled up in the seat, watching the landscape change outside the window.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Clint hit a road block and Clint and Phil strike a deal.

Tony didn’t really think it was going to work. Honestly. 

Two teenage kids with no responsible adult between them asking to speak a convicted felon was not going to fly, even if Tony was the son of one of the richest guys in the world. 

Tony only said yes because it would at least get him away from his dad for a day or two and he kind of thought that Clint was kidding. 

They drove through the night and slept in the car in the parking lot of a Wendy’s before finishing the last 30 minutes of the drive to the prison. 

When Clint went up to ask for visitation the lady practically laughed in his face. Clint didn’t seem to mind and continued pushing until the women called over two bulky look guards. 

When the lady and the two guards figured out that Clint and Tony had come alone without an adult, well… that’s when things got even more interesting. 

“Where are you parents, kid?” 

They were currently in the warden’s office. Clint and Tony were both unceremoniously thrown into the chairs in front of the man’s desk a few minutes ago, the two guards standing stock still in the doorway and the warden staring down at them. Clint wasn’t looking at the man, which meant there was an incredibly high likelihood that he didn’t hear the warden. 

Tony knew that the guy wasn’t talking to him. It just so happened that a local newspaper had picked up on Tony’s escapade through Brooklyn last week with a few unwieldy robots and that meant Tony’s picture and name were front and center on the first page. Gotta love small towns. 

“I assume you’re talking to Clint and not me since my face is on the cover of that newspaper on your desk and I’m gonna help you out, since I’m a nice kid. He can’t hear you. He can read lips but he’s not about to give you the time of day if he can’t see his brother,” Tony smiled his best smile and folded his hands in his lap as the warden tried very hard not to punch Tony. 

Tony knew that look pretty well by now. 

“What’s his brother’s name?” 

Tony shrugged, “His last name is Barton, if that helps.” 

The warden stepped around the desk to sit behind his computer, if Clint noticed he still wasn’t looking up. He was sitting on his hands and glaring at the carpet. 

“How’d he rope you into this?” the man was still clicking away at keyboard, occasionally looking up at each boy separately. 

“Everyone needs a little vacation time once in a while. Besides, he’s my friend… kind of,” Tony reached out to grab the digital clock sitting on the desk but the warden reached over and smacked his hand away. Tony hmm’d and pulled his hands away and started tapping the arms of his chair. 

“I found his brother, but I still can’t let them see each other. He’s a minor, he needs consent of a parent or legal guardian,” 

Tony gave a look, “He doesn’t have one of those.”

“He doesn’t have what, a parent?”

“Or a legal guardian. At least not one who’s gonna drive from the city out to bumfuck Buffalo,” Bumfuck Buffalo. Tony’d have to remember that one for later. 

“And I assume you’re not going to call someone from Daddy’s company to come take you two away from my prison?” The warden ran his hands through his hair as he sighed. 

“Dad doesn’t answer the phone unless there’s at least 5 million dollars talking on the other end, trust me, I’ve tried.” 

The two guards looked at each other and the warden gave Tony an incredibly long look spanning at least 4 of the 5 emotions the man had probably mastered in his life, “There’s got to be,” the warden started, “At least one adult that can claim to be responsible for you two for at least two hours so I can get you two out of my jail.” 

Tony thought for a moment, jabbed Clint in the elbow, and mouthed, “We could call Phil?” 

Which lead to some eyebrow waging, a thrown pen and a few curse words. 

“Okay, there’s one person we can call.” 

\--

Phil sighed and shrugged out of his jacket as he walked through the doorway into the main office of North Buffalo Penitentiary. He looked around the room, taking in his surroundings and found the receptionist, then rang the bell on the counter to alert the women behind the desk. 

“How can I help you?” She asked, not looking up from her computer screen. 

“I’m here to pick up Clint Barton and Tony Stark, unattended minors. An… um,” Phil pulled out the piece of paper he’d taken the message down on, “Officer Jackson called me?”

“Tony Stark… As in Howard Stark, of Stark Industries, his son?” 

Phil nodded and tried not to ball his fists up on top of the counter, “Could you just… tell me where the kids are?” 

“Might as well set Stark up with a bunk here tonight, it’s where he’s going to end up if he keeps taking apart things in all the offices,” Phil huffed and did not kick the wall with his boot, “They’re in the warden’s office, down the hall take a right, second door on the right.”

Phil grunted out a thank you and walked down the hallway. The door he was looking for was easy enough, it was wide open and he could hear Tony’s brash voice as soon as he had hit the hallway. 

He wasn’t surprised to find a few exacerbated adults in the room as well, six (five and a half) hours with Tony alone was bad enough, but with Clint and Tony? Or any combination of his therapy kids was enough to send any adult to at least one therapy session. 

Almost everything electronic had been hoarded into one corner and one of the guards in the room was standing in front of it, presumably so Tony couldn’t get to it. Phil also noticed there were no pens in the pen cup, but there were at least three with the pointy end in the wall behind the warden’s desk. 

“Please, for the love of God, tell me you’re Phil Coulson,” Phil nodded at the man; he must’ve been the warden. He was wearing a button up shirt with khaki pants and wasn’t as buff as the officers in the room, he was however, looking down at Tony and Clint who were working together to dismantle an iPad on the floor. 

Phil stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips and sighed, “Tony.” 

Tony looked up, which in turn, made Clint look up and they both smiled. 

“Hey, Agent. Didn’t think you’d come, I thought you never left the school?” 

Phil glared at Tony and then glared at Clint who was doing his best to maintain his innocent smile. 

“Typically I don’t leave the school, you’re right, but 15 phone calls from a prison talking about runaway students tends to get anyone away from their desk,” 

“We didn’t run away,” Clint mumbled, so he was paying attention to Phil now, “We drove away,” Phil did not get enough coffee on the road to deal with this kind of drama. 

“However you got away, it was stupid. I had to cancel 4 meetings and get Pepper to cover our group meeting,” Phil pointed at Clint and then at Tony, “Who’s the mastermind behind this? If you lie to me I’ll know.” 

Clint and Tony shared a look and Clint slowly stood up and walked towards Phil. 

When Clint was close enough he put his hand on his shoulder and pointed him towards the door, “We need a private conversation, can I leave Tony with you for a few more minutes?” 

The warden looked tired and the officers looked terrified but they let Phil and Clint walk out into the hallway. 

Clint looked down at the ground until they got to a corner of the front office where they could talk without anyone hearing them; he peeked up at Phil, his apologetic face batting a thousand. 

“Tell me right now, is this because of that fight with Thor?” Phil made sure Clint caught every word that came out of his mouth and he knew he’d hit the right spot when Clint balled his fists up at his sides. 

“Thor said my brother did something to his family… I have to know what and there isn’t anyone in New York who’s gonna tell me,” Clint looked up at the end and stared at Phil, “I gotta see my brother… please?” 

Phil sighed, the kid wasn’t lying. Phil wasn’t about to tell Clint what Thor had said, that he thought Clint’s brother killed his mom and brother, that would bring more trouble than solutions. Maybe Phil should talk to Thor’s father, even he seems to know more than Clint before he came to the school.

“Clint, your brother is a felon, he’s dangerous.”

“He’s my brother,” Clint responded darkly. 

Phil sat down in the chair behind him and ran his hands through his thinning hair. This was a terrible idea. An awful and terrible idea. 

Phil looked up.

“If I let you go in to see your brother… then you have to tell me what happened between when you left the children’s home in Iowa and when you ended up at the shelter.” 

Clint glared, “Is that even legal?” 

Phil shrugged, “Maybe not, but I doubt DCS will care how I got the information as long as I know it,” Clint stared down the floor, tapping his fingers in the crocks of his elbows. Phil reached up and tapped on Clint’s shoulder to make him look up again, “We can help you a lot better if we know what happened.”

“I don’t need your help,” Clint shook his head. 

“Bullshit,” Phil snapped. Clint blinked, Phil hardly ever cussed. 

Clint sat down in the chair next to Phil and wrung his hands together for a minute or two before reaching out to shake hands with Phil.

“Good, we have a deal.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Barney finally get to talk, and so do Clint and Phil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took longer than usual! I had two different ideas warring in my head and I couldn't decide how I wanted the chapter to go but it went the way it did and it's fine! I think... anyway. Also work has been a bit ridiculous. Here's the chapter!

Barney glared at Phil briefly when he was first led into the visitation room. Clint was sitting on one side of a table in the room and Phil was standing, leaning against one of the walls. 

The officer unlocked Barney’s handcuffs and went to stand in a corner of the room. 

The first thing Barney noticed, at least according to Phil, is that Clint didn’t have his hearing aids in. Barney, after a quick look at the officer, reached over the table and pulled on Clint’s ear with a face that could easily rival Phil’s mom when she’s disappointed. 

Clint just shrugs, “Got in a fight with some kid, he busted them.” 

Barney turned his gaze on Phil again, “Clint, who’s this?” 

“Mr. Coulson… He’s the social worker at my school,” Clint muttered, looking at Phil briefly before turning back to Barney. 

“You got anything to do with that?” Barney asked Phil. 

Phil shook his head, “I wasn’t present at the fight, no. I’m working with the health department and the Medicaid office in the city to get him some new ones.” 

Barney nodded slowly and turned back to Clint, “When did you start going to school?” 

“This summer. Some cops caught me hustling and you were gone so they put me in a shelter and put me in school,” Clint kicked his feet under the table a few times and kept looking up at his older brother to check his facial expressions. 

Barney leaned back in his seat and continued shifting his gaze from Phil to Clint until Clint sighed, “He’s a good guy, alright? He’s not gonna get you or me in trouble… I mean, you can’t get in more trouble than prison trouble,” Clint smiled at the end of his comment when Barney gave him the middle finger. 

Phil wondered when was the last time the two brothers saw each other. Barney had been in jail for almost half a year before they found Clint in New York but Clint was only in the city for about two weeks before the police picked him up. 

“Why’d that kid fight you?”

A shrug, “He thinks you did something to his family.” 

Barney raised his eyebrows, “Well that could mean a lot of things, kid.” 

Clint nodded and looked over at Phil and then over at the guard before bringing his hands above the table and beginning to sign. 

Phil caught a few signs, someone’s name, maybe Thor’s father, was finger spelled. Barney signed back, his signs short and to the point and it was obvious he hadn’t been using sign language in a while because there were a few times were Clint would interject to fix something or ask a question. 

Phil wasn’t surprised that Clint had shut him out for this conversation. If he had a brother and it was possible he was a murderer he wouldn’t want everyone in a prison to know about it either. 

Somewhere in the conversation Barney must’ve said something that Clint didn’t agree with. Barney was trying to get the conversation back on the rails but without even so much as a glance towards the officer in the room Clint had reached over and smacked Barney’s hand and responded to something with quick and heated signs. 

When that didn’t get him what he wanted Clint stopped signing and turned away from Barney. Barney was trying to get him to turn around without drawing too much attention from the guard but he knew as well as Phil that Clint was as stubborn as a mule when he didn’t want to talk to someone. 

“I’m assuming that didn’t go well?” Phil offered, gaining a glare from Barney. 

“He’s a kid, he doesn’t understand why people do the stuff they do… Why people do the stuff they have to do,” Barney muttered while staring at the back of Clint’s head. 

“Well whatever you had to do isn’t helping Clint. The other kid from the fight is one of the only friends he has and I personally don’t want to have to worry about them fighting again.” 

Barney shrugged, “I can’t do much about the past and he knows that.”

Phil was about to respond when the officer walked back over, “Times up, Barton.”

Barney stood up and let the officer handcuff him. Clint continued staring at the wall on the other side of the room and Phil stepped back to give them the space. 

“Can you just tell him to stay out of trouble?” Barney asked as the officer was snapping the second cuff on his wrist. 

“Of course,” Phil nodded. 

Barney hesitated when the officer tugged on his arms to get him to move back towards the inside of the prison. 

“Tell him he can write me, if he wants. It’s been too long since we got to talk.” 

\--

After watching one of Tony’s butlers greet him in the lobby of Stark Tower Phil directed Clint towards a diner Phil remembered being about three blocks away. 

It had been a long day and Phil needed some food before he started in on this conversation that was sure to be one of the most draining conversations he’d ever have. Tony and Clint had gotten to the prison in the early morning hours and made their presence known which meant Phil hadn’t gotten there until the early part of the afternoon and now it was almost 11pm as they dodged a taxi trying to beat a red light. 

Clint shuffled along next to Phil, letting the social worker open the door and pick a booth in the very back of the diner. 

“You boys need anything to drink?” The waitress asked as she set down two menus and smiled. 

Phil gave Clint a glance and realized he wasn’t even paying attention to the woman, “Two waters and a pot of coffee, please,” he said and let the waitress walk away. 

Phil tapped the table in front of Clint to get his attention, “Pick something to eat, it’s on me.” 

Clint nodded and flipped over the menu to start looking through it. 

The waitress came back with their water and a fresh pot of coffee. Once everything was set down she pulled out her notepad and waited for Clint to give his order. 

“Can I have the chicken sandwich with a side of fries and macaroni, please?” Clint mumbled, sliding his menu across the table so the waitress could pick it up. 

She nodded and looked to Phil, “I’ll have the BLT with mayo on the side and a small salad.”

“Coming right up, grab me if you need anything.” 

Once the waitress left to go deliver the order Clint looked up at Phil and shrugged, “So, are we talking about all this now, or later?” 

“You can talk whenever you’re ready,” Phil offered. 

Clint sighed. 

A few minutes later Clint finally started with, “You know that Iowa sucks, right?” 

“I’ve never been, I wouldn’t know.”

“Well it does,” Clint responded, “There’s nothing to do and everyone acts like it’s the best place ever but it’s not,” Clint tucked one of his legs under himself and pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands. 

“The home was okay. There were a bunch of kids and the adults were full of shit but it could’ve been a lot worse. Barney wanted to leave though, he said he was old enough to do everything by himself but he didn’t want to leave me there,” Clint picked at the napkin in front of him, tearing little pieces off the corner. 

“He stole the home director’s credit card and bought us two bus tickets to New York. No one would let him rent an apartment because he didn’t have a job or anything and he was too young but this one guy let us stay in his building if Barney would work for him. His wife was Deaf so she kept me during the day and Barney never told me what he was doing but I’m pretty sure he was working for Thor’s dad.” 

Clint shrugged down at his napkin and continued tearing into it. After a few minutes of silence the waitress brought their food to the table. Clint grabbed the ketchup from the condiments section of the table and squeezed some out in a corner of his plate before taking three fries and dunking them. 

“Candice, the Deaf lady, she taught me and Barney how to sign, mostly just me though… Barney was gone a lot with her husband and the other guys.” 

Phil took a bite of his sandwich and kept his eyes on Clint who was staring at his plate of food, having only taken a few bites. After he swallowed his bite he tapped on Clint’s shoulder, “You didn’t know how to sign before?” 

Clint shook his head; “The doctors said that speaking would be better since I could hear pretty well with the hearing aids. The people from the home wouldn’t let me use my hands when I talked. Candice spoke too but she liked sign better and thought I should learn.” 

Clint took a half-hearted bite of his sandwich, chewed, and swallowed, “Barney must’ve pissed someone off cause we left probably two years later. He had a car, I think he stole it, and we drove around for a while before we found some guys that were willing to take us in.” 

Phil nodded, “That’s Jacques and Buck, right? The guys you told me about at the museum?” 

Clint nodded in return, “They worked for a circus, finding talent and worker and stuff like that. They needed someone who could shoot arrows and when they started to teach me they realized I was pretty good. Barney was okay but they only wanted me so he left. Came back here and got back in with Thor’s dad… for a while anyway.” 

Phil blinked, “You learned how to shoot a bow and arrow in a circus? How did no one ever think to call CPS?” 

“They’d be on a wild goose chase through the country following the circus. Carnies have kids like rabbits anyway, it’s not like they couldn’t just claim us as their own,” Clint shrugged. 

“So those two guys took care of you?” Phil asked with a quizzical look on his face. 

“Jacques and Buck weren’t so bad,” Clint offered before waving his hands around, “I mean… they were pretty bad but they could’ve been a lot worse, anyway, they don’t know where I am and I don’t know where they are and it’s fine like that. Can we be done now?” 

As they had been eating over their food the waitress had dropped off the check. 

Phil sighed and pulled out his wallet, “I guess that’s good enough for now, CPS is probably going to send someone by since you ran away from the shelter, it’d be good if you could tell them what you told me?” Phil offered as he set down enough to cover the check and add a tip. 

Clint gave Phil his middle finger, “Like that’ll happen.”

Phil sighed and slid himself out of the booth, “It was worth a shot. Come on, let’s get you back to the shelter.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked for a Tony chapter and I was thinking of doing that for this chapter anywhere so here we go!

“Jarvis,” Tony greeted, watching Agent and Clint leave from the lobby. 

Jarvis reached out his hands for the keys to Howard’s car. Agent was a douche, but he wasn’t a douche enough to make Tony leave his car in Buffalo. Tony was, however, required to follow no less than 100 feet behind Phil at all times or he would call the State Troopers to escort Tony back to the city himself. 

Once back in the city Phil parked in the parking garage across from Stark Tower and made sure Tony had parked his father’s car under the tower properly before returning him to the proper adult, in this case, Jarvis, his family’s butler. 

“Mr. Stark,” Jarvis nodded as Tony dropped the keys into his hand and turned around to go up the elevator. 

“Does Howard know?” Tony stopped calling Howard his dad probably a year or two ago. Howard spent a good two months trying to correct that behavior before giving up. 

“He knows you took the car,” Jarvis hummed as he pressed the call button for the elevator, “He doesn’t know what you were doing with it though, I thought maybe I’d ignore that bit of the phone call.” 

“You’re a good man, Jarvis. For a brit, anyway,” Tony waltzed into the elevator and pressed the button for the living quarters. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

Tony moved to the corner of the elevator and rocked forward on his toes while the car moved up the floors. 

Tony wasn’t expecting the punch that greeted him when he opened the front door after Jarvis went the other way down the hall to his own living quarters. 

Tony was still reeling from the punch when Howard grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him into the living room. 

“What the fuck, man!? What if Jarvis was still outside?” Tony shouted, holding his hand over his check where Howard had struck him. 

Howard was fuming. Howard was also drunk. Which was not all that surprising when Tony actually gave it some thought. 

Tony remembers being 5 years old and trying the scotch in his father’s glass down in the workshop after school one day. Tony almost threw up and Howard had barred him from the lab until Tony had started building robots outside the door in the hallway. 

The only time Howard wasn’t drunk was when Maria was home but Maria only came home when the press started to question whether she was cheating on the technology mogul with an actor or prominent businessman. 

Tony tries not to hate his mom but it’s hard when she bats an eye at his stitches or ignores a black eye. 

“Jarvis is paid not to care about what he sees,” Howard muttered, still pulling on Tony’s shirt. 

Tony tried to pull back, “Why the fuck do you even care about me taking the car? You were passed out when I took it anyway!” 

Howard let go of Tony’s shirt and tossed him forward, “Get out of my sight,” he slurred, slowly walking towards the kitchen and pulling out a half empty bottle of scotch. 

Tony straightened out his shirt and ran a hand through his hair, ignoring the pain in his cheek from the punch, “Mom is coming home tomorrow, I wouldn’t drink that.” 

Tony’s smart. Smart enough to duck as Howard threw the bottle at Tony’s head, hitting the wall instead. 

\--

Tony spotted Thor, Steve and Natasha as he got out of the SVU. 

“Woah, what happened to your face?” Steve, ever the nosey idiot that he was, called as Tony got closer to the group. Tony did his best to cover the bruise on his cheek from the punch but his mom has a lock on her bathroom door that Tony has yet to figure out and Tony doesn’t carry make-up in his backpack, thank you. 

Tony shrugged, “You didn’t hear about Clint and I’s little adventure into the unknown?” Tony turned toward Natasha, “I expected better from you, Spycraft.” 

Natasha threw a lazy punch at Tony’s shoulder, “Ms. Potts was left in charge, she doesn’t let any information slip by her, I tried.” 

“Wait, so did Clint punch you?” Thor asked as they continued up the stairs. 

Tony scoffed, “That kid couldn’t fight if his life depended on it,” a lie, they all knew, “Aren’t you supposed to be suspended for trying to make him fight you?” 

Thor shrugged, “It’s in Mr. Fury’s office, he thinks that making me stay home would be giving me a vacation.” 

Agent was at the door as they walked into the building and he smiled, “Morning guys. Thor, go straight to the office, the rest of you better be in your classrooms before the bell rings.”

Tony and Natasha rolled their eyes as Steve nodded and headed off down the hallway ahead of them. Thor sighed and walked as slow as possible into the front office towards his doom. 

“Hey Tony, hold up for a second,” Agent called after he and Natasha started down the main hallway. 

Tony could pretend that he couldn’t hear Agent but he already had his hand on Tony’s shoulder, it was too late to deny anything. 

“Want to come help me with the printer? It started screaming at me again.” 

Agent must’ve noticed the bruise too, he never asked Tony to help him with something so trivial when he could be torturing Tony with English class where some of the kids couldn’t even write their own names. 

Tony didn’t say anything, just followed Agent back to his office as the bell rang and more students scrambled to class. 

The printer wasn’t screaming so much as making a really annoying beeping sound occasionally interrupted with a low hum. Tony pulled up a chair so he could sit down and pull the back casing off the printer and look inside. 

Agent sat down at his desk on the other side and began typing on his laptop. 

“Do you need me to make a phone call? I don’t like that you didn’t have that bruise the last time I saw you,” he said as he typed. 

Tony shrugged, “It won’t matter,” he unplugged a few wires and plugged them back in, “Howard will just pay off whoever comes.” 

“I know people who can’t be bought.” 

Tony looked up from the printer and presented a dissatisfied look to the adult staring at him, “Everyone can be bought for the right price. Besides, mom is coming home tonight, nothing happens when she’s home,” Tony pulled on a few more wires and pieces inside the printer and put the back casing back on with a snap. The printer stopped beeping and the hum went away. 

“Would you talk to the social worker?” 

Tony pulled an excuse note off Agent’s notepad and put it in front of him to fill out, “The social worker is about one step up from you, Agent. If your friends can’t help, neither can theirs.” 

Tony reached out for the note once it was filled out and groaned when Agent held it away from him, “I’m going to set up a meeting for the two of you. Just. Think about at least telling some of the truth? I don’t want to show up at school one day and find out you’re dead or missing.” 

Tony sighed, “Yes, Agent. Can I go to class now?” 

Tony reached for the excuse note again and then time snatched it out of his hands. 

“The truth!” 

Tony waved the excuse note as a ‘sure, whatever you say’ gesture in the air behind himself as he walked out of the office. 

Tony wasn’t going to talk to the social worker; everyone knew that by now. 

The 4 different elementary schools and 5 middle schools he attended in New York knew that too. 

There was no point in talking to them, whoever they said they would send to Tony’s house to ‘check on him’ either wouldn’t show up at all or assume that what Howard said about Tony was true. He was clumsy, that the bruises were from fights at school, that Tony had fallen in the lab in the dark. Followed by a tour of the labs and a few free Stark pens, bags and shirts. 

Tony wasn’t going to talk to the social worker and Tony didn’t need a social worker. He was almost 18 and almost 18 meant they probably wouldn’t even mention it to anyone and they’d leave him alone. 

Almost 18 meant he could leave and Howard couldn’t do anything at all to get him back. 

Tony just has to be patient, that’s all.


	13. Chapter 13

Natasha smiled when she saw Clint standing at the bottom of the stairs leading out of the front of the school building. She would’ve shouted to get his attention but she noticed he still didn’t have new hearing aids and the noise bouncing around the city street would swallow her voice up. 

Instead she tapped him on the shoulder. 

Clint and Tony had returned from their little adventure on Thursday and Mr. Fury had assigned Clint and Thor four days of in school suspension for their fight. It was Monday now, which meant Natasha hadn’t really gotten the chance to see Clint outside of a few brief minutes before the school bell rang. Normally they spent most of the day together given how many classes they shared.

Clint turned around and smiled at Natasha, “Hey, thought I could walk you to your dance studio today?” he offered, straightening his backpack on his shoulders. 

Natasha nodded and brought her pointer finger up to her lips and back out, Sure. 

They turned right away from the school and shuffled next to each other, occasionally bumping into each other and snickering as the other one pushed back. 

Clint began signing as they continued down the road, turning right after a few more blocks. Natasha had only been learning sign language since Clint started school with them in August so she didn’t know much but she enjoyed just watching Clint’s stories flow from his fingers. 

Natasha caught a few signs here and there. It was something about the teacher in charge of the in school suspension room and the way they ate. 

They were almost to the front door of the studio when Clint finished his story and started talking, “Do you want me to walk you home from your class later?” he asked. 

Natasha blinked, “What about the shelter?” she tired to sign as well but Clint seemed to get the picture. 

He shrugged, “There’s a social worker waiting there today. They want to talk about my brother. I’d rather stay here… if that’s okay?” he kicked at the ground and looked up and down the street. 

Natasha bumped his shoulder to make him look up, “Sure. Mrs. Dustin might make you clean the bathrooms though.” 

Clint laughed and followed Natasha into the studio. 

\--

Natasha began dance classes at 4pm and didn’t leave her last class until 9pm three days a week. Ballet, Pointe, Jazz and Tap. There was usually a break between Pointe and Jazz where she and the other students could go and find something to eat or do homework but when she walked out of Pointe she saw Clint sitting behind the front desk eating part of a sack lunch and poking a pencil at his math workbook. 

Natasha pulled on her sweater over her leotard and walked over to the desk. Clint slid half a peanut butter sandwich and some chips across the desk and continued staring at the math question in front of him. 

Natasha shrugged a thanks to Clint, since he wasn’t looking anyway, and took a small bite of the sandwich. 

One of the only classes Clint and Natasha didn’t share was math. Natasha had been put in one of the Junior level math classes and Clint was in a remedial math class. 

Natasha knew that Clint hadn’t been in school for a while; Tony didn’t call her spycraft for nothing. 

She bumped Clint’s shoulder and pointed at the question. Clint sighed, “The teacher talks too fast, I can’t read his lips,” in explanation for why he hadn’t answered the question yet. 

Natasha turned her palm up, asking for Clint’s pencil, and pulled a sheet of paper down off the top of the front desk. Clint placed the pencil in Natasha’s waiting hand and slid down to put his head in his hands to watch Natasha copy over the question and start working through it. 

Natasha was pretty sure that figuring out of all of Clint’s homework questions for him wasn’t the best way to go about things but neither was leaving him to slave over 10 math questions for an entire evening. 

“You better get at least one of those wrong,” Clint mumbled into his forearm, “Mr. Trey isn’t gonna believe me if I get everything right.” 

Natasha shrugged, “Maybe you got a tutor?” 

Clint scoffed. 

“Natasha,” Mrs. Dustin came out from the dance studio, her phone in her hand, “I have a Mr. Coulson asking about Clint.” 

Natasha tapped Clint on the shoulder, and angled her head towards Mrs. Dustin and her phone then signed Coulson’s sign name (an A and a C at the forehead for ‘Agent Coulson’). 

Clint shook his head and Natasha looked back over at Mrs. Dustin, “I can talk to him.”

Mrs. Dustin shrugged and handed the phone to Natasha. Natasha raised her eyebrows at Clint briefly and passed the paper with all the solutions back over to him so he could copy it down on his paper in his chicken scratch. 

“Hi, Mr. Coulson. This is Natasha,” 

Coulson sighed. 

“Natasha is Clint with you?” 

Natasha held the phone between her chin and her shoulder and tapped her foot against the chair she was sitting in, “What happens if he is?” 

Coulson sounded like maybe Natasha was dancing on his last nerve when he responded with, “Nothing, except I will come over to the studio and take him to talk to the social worker.” 

Clint had copied over a few answers to his homework while Natasha had been talking but now he was looking at Natasha while she talked on the phone. She stole the pencil back and wrote quickly that it was Coulson and he wanted Clint to see the social worker. 

Clint shook his head. 

Natasha hmm’ed, “He said he won’t talk to them.” 

“Does he understand that talking to the social worker might help him?” 

Social workers mean well, most of them, Natasha knows that, but they can only do so much. Natasha had a social worker in Russia and a social worker at her old school before. The only thing either of those people did was piss Ivan off and get Natasha in more trouble before they moved. 

“What if the social worker gets him sent away?” 

Natasha could just see Coulson, either at his desk or standing outside the school, his hand running through his thinning hair as he paced. 

“Natasha… if anything, the social worker could put him somewhere that’s better than the shelter.” 

Natasha turned around in the chair to face away from Clint, who, while Natasha was talking, had gotten distracted and started play-flirting with one of the girls in her class. He was trying to teach her how to fingerspell the alphabet in an incredibly hands-on manner. 

“Well, he has to walk me home from class tonight,” Natasha finally spoke, “but maybe they could come to the school tomorrow? I can promise he won’t skip.” 

“Aw, you’d do that for me?” Coulson’s tone of voice didn’t change for Natasha could tell that he was skeptical but also somewhat relieved that this conversation might happen. 

“We all know you mean well. If you think the social worker will be good for Clint I guess I can help.” 

Coulson exhaled and now Natasha could definitely hear the sounds of the city outside around him, as if he was walking again instead of pacing back and forth, “Do I have to give you something in payment for keeping Clint out of the loop on this?” 

Natasha spun around in the chair for a moment, catching a glimpse of the girl now trying to teach Clint how to spin on his toes, as she thought. 

“Two books off your bookshelf, any books I want.” 

“Okay,” Coulson responded without hesitating, “After Clint meets with the social worker you get your books.” 

“Thank you!” Natasha hung up the phone and handed it back over to Mrs. Dustin and stood up to try and help Clint stop stepping on her classmate’s toes.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked for more Bruce and Steve. I know I know. I'm sorry! I have plans for them, I do! It's just hard to get to those plans over all the other stuff I want. BUT! Here is Steve, and this might actually help me get to the plans I want for him so, thank you for the push! Enjoy!

Bruce walked into Phil Coulson’s office two minutes after the usual time (he had maybe been hiding in one of the science labs and lost track of time. Maybe.)

Thor was late too so it wasn’t like either of them were going to get in trouble. When Bruce looked up from the back of Thor’s heels he noticed something was a little bit off. 

Phil was leaned back in his desk chair, his hands folded over his stomach, not at the table they all usually sat at. Tony was on the couch folded into his hoodie and Steve was next to him looking rather shocked. 

None of those things were out of the ordinary but Natasha sitting cross-legged style on top of the table and Clint under the table with at least ten sharpened pencils. 

“Um,” Bruce offered, setting his backpack down and moving out of Clint’s aim. 

“Natasha and Agent have proven themselves untrustworthy,” Tony mumbled around the strings of his hoodie. 

Bruce raised his eyebrows and flourished his hands in a way that said ‘Yeah, how so, idiot?’ just as Phil and Natasha sighed heavily in unison. 

Tony shrugged and spit out the strings, “That’s all I know, this stand off was already underway when I came in, on time! I might add.” 

Bruce contained himself enough to not give Tony literally any variation of the bird and looked at Steve who was generally helpful in these situations. 

Steve gave a glance to Clint under the table, “Phil called a social worker on Clint… about the whole running away thing,” Steve took a breath and looked at Natasha, “And Natasha may have tricked Clint into actually going to the meeting.” 

“It couldn’t have been that bad! The guy gave Clint new hearing aids!” Natasha defended. 

Luckily Clint was a decent enough kid to slide the new hearing aids across the floor from under the table instead of throwing them with one of the pencils. 

Phil stood up and walked over to the table, dodging two pencils as he picked up the hearing aids and put them in Steve’s hand, “It’s your turn, Steve.” 

When Phil created the therapy group he did notice there was a bit of a gap between the kids. They all needed extra attention outside of what the school could regularly provide but some of them needed an extra truckload of attention instead of just a tiny red corvette amount of attention. 

Clint was one of those who needed at least another 18-wheeler full of attention, along with Bruce and at times, Natasha. 

In the beginning of the school year it was apparent that if something wasn’t done Phil was going to begin losing his kids to a more appealing, and also more dangerous life outside of school. 

When he realized that Phil started paying attention to the relationships that were forming. Natasha generally preferred Clint, Steve, Thor and sometimes Bruce. Bruce sided with Tony on most things. Steve and Thor bounced around but often settled with each other or Natasha and Tony. Tony, for all his bratty behavior, enjoyed spending time with Bruce or Clint and Clint (outside of this current predicament) spent most of his time with Natasha, Steve or Bruce. 

After discovering the groups that had formed within the already tiny group Phil had come up with the turn system. Instead of Phil always being the one to fix a problem or be the only one anyone could talk to they could talk to someone on their list. 

Steve was on Clint’s list and currently it was Steve’s turn to see if he could do anything to keep Clint from inadvertently adding more days to his suspension. 

\--

Steve continued sketching onto the sheet of paper in his notebook with one of the pencils Clint had tossed his direction earlier. 

After Phil decided it was Steve’s turn to talk Clint out from under the table Phil took the other kids to the conference room on the other side of the office and left Steve and Clint to their own devices. 

When Clint realized Steve was the only other person in the room he slid out from under the table and slumped onto the couch next to Steve with his hand out, silently asking for his hearing aids back. 

Steve gave it about five minutes before he spoke up, “Was the social worker that bad?” 

Steve’s current social worker wasn’t that bad of a guy if he was being honest. He kept in touch pretty regularly and treated Steve like the kid that he was, a kid that was about to age of the system but got lucky with a good family in Martha and Jon. 

Steve remembers his previous social workers though. Social workers that were too nosey, too uninvolved or too busy. None of them were all that bad though and Steve tried to keep himself from judging a new one any time they came in based on previous experience. 

Steve’s first social worker, the first one after he left Bucky’s parents, removed him from a perfectly good house (due to lack of space) just to put him in a house where no amount of space in the world would protect him from the abusive father who ruled with an iron fist. 

Clint just shrugged. 

“He gave you your ears back, that’s good of him,” Steve bumped his shoulder into Clint’s to try and elicit a smile or something out of him. Clint rewarded him with a tiny smile but shrugged again. 

Steve kept drawing for a few more minutes while Clint began to twirl his last remaining pencil over and under his fingers. 

“He thinks I should move out of New York, go back to Iowa,” Clint mumbled as he switched the pencil from his right hand to his left hand. 

“My first social worker tried to move me from Brooklyn all the way to Kansas since I had a grandpa there. Turns out he died like 3 years before or something,” Steve continued on the sketch. It was Phil sitting at his desk… or well… it would be, when it was done. 

Clint looked from his pencil over to Steve, “You had a social worker?” 

Steve wasn’t surprised that Clint didn’t know about Steve’s childhood. For the most part they only shared the big things. Tony was a Stark, half of Thor’s family was dead, Bruce’s dad jumped off the mental deep end, Natasha had a penchant for fire, Clint liked to fight and Steve was the ‘good kid’. 

Guess it was time to give something up.

“Yeah. Still do. My dad was never around and my mom died when I was little. My best friend’s folks took me in for a while but… some bad stuff happened and they had to put me in the system. Jumped around from houses to group homes and stuff like that sense then.” 

Clint nodded his head, “Always just thought you were here to make the rest of us look bad.” 

Steve laughed and put up his middle finger, “Yeah, whatever.” 

Clint let a few beats pass before opening his mouth, “My parents died in a car accident when I was really little. My older brother and I went to an orphanage, group home… thing. Barney, my brother, he didn’t like it there so we both came here. Then we split up for a while and he got arrested and I got sent to that shelter.” 

Clint continued playing with the pencil, “You know about Thor’s family right?” He waited for Steve to nod, “Thor thinks my brother did it. That’s why I ran away, to go ask him. The social worker thinks I’m gonna turn into my brother if I stay here.” 

Steve shrugged, “Are you?” 

“My brother is a piece of shit,” Clint said into his hands. 

Steve wanted to say that Clint was sometimes that way too but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t help and that Clint already knew he had bad habits. 

“Does the social worker know why you went to go talk to him?” Steve asked.

Clint nodded. 

“And Phil knows?” Steve continued. 

Clint nodded. 

The bell, that signified their hour was over and that they should return to class soon rang. 

Steve folded his notebook closed and stood up, offering his hand to help Clint up as well. 

As Clint was getting to his feet Steve spoke, “Phil isn’t going to let you get taken away, not if we have anything to say about it, alright?” 

Clint nodded at his shoes. 

“It might help to apologize to him and Natasha though. They were only doing what they thought was right, huh?” 

Clint used his hand to create a ‘mouth’ and made it open and shut a few times, “Yes sir, Captain. I’ll go find them now,” he stuck out his tongue just as Steve gave him the finger again. 

“Go to class, freshman!”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Check the notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey readers! I'm so sorry this has taken so long, work got all weird and then I sort of lost my inspiration and I started working on other stuff, but I'm back! 
> 
> This chapter has mentions of children being placed in psychiatric wards (including one of our main characters). Hopefully I wrote this okay, as you know I've never written a story like this before :)

“Tony, you’ve been late every day this week,” Phil called from behind the front desk as he watched Tony walk into the office. Hill was out of the office for the morning and Phil drew the short straw to cover the front desk while she was out. 

Tony shrugged and slumped down in one of the chairs up against the wall, “Driver was late,” he offered, watching Phil pull out the stack of empty tardy notes and begin writing. 

“Four days in a row?” Phil asked, as he began to fill out the tardy slip with a pen he borrowed from the cup on Hill’s desk. 

“Guess so,” Tony mumbled. 

“My friend from protective services called, they said they had a talk with your father on Monday, think that might have something to do with it?” Phil slid the piece of paper over to where Tony could reach it if he were going to get up from the chair and clicked through a few tabs trying to find out what class Tony would be in right now. 

“Fuck off,” Tony groaned, as he rolled his head back so it was hanging back off the chair. 

“They also said your father is going to submit to alcohol level testing at random times during the week for the next six months,” Phil stood up and walked around to the front of the desk to hand Tony his tardy slip. 

“I said ‘fuck off,’ Agent,” Tony slowly pulled himself out of the chair and stretched out his hand for the tardy slip, “He took my driver away, and my engineering shit, and anything else that could possibly be counted as interesting in that tower.” 

Phil blinked and put the slip in Tony’s open palm, “Sorry.”

Tony closed his fingers around the pass and started his shuffle out of the office, “Thanks, though. For doing that, it… um. Thanks.” 

Phil nodded and started walking back to the desk, “Anytime, Tony.” 

\--

“Hi, this is Phil Coulson calling from Marvel High School about Bruce,” Phil made a disgusted face at his peppy and upbeat phone voice, he hates talking on the phone, “This is the second day in a row that he’s missed school without an excuse note, we’re just checking up to see if everything is alright?” 

Again, Phil is not typically the person who makes these phone calls, if anything Pepper would be doing this but Hill is still gone and Pepper has been in a meeting with Principal Fury for going on three hours now. 

Bruce, as Phil knew, lived with his cousin, and generally she was pretty good at getting Bruce to school, her office was only about two blocks away from the school and she came to all the meetings about Bruce at the school so Phil isn’t entirely sure what’s wrong. 

It’s quiet on the other side of the line long enough that Phil thinks he’s being ignored but she finally answers, “Oh, Mr. Coulson, right? I’m sorry, I completely forgot to call the school,” her voice was tired, the type of bone-deep tired that Phil gets sometimes by the end of a bad week. 

“That’s alright, we just want to make sure Bruce is okay,” Phil responded, leaning back in the chair and twirling his pen. 

“He… um… the other night, I’m sure you know about his anger issues, being at the school with him, usually he wears himself out or his medication helps… but,” she sighs and Phil stops twirling his pen, “the other night he was so angry it went on for hours. He broke the stove and the sink and smashed one of the windows in the living room, nothing I tried to do worked. I finally called his psychiatrist and he said to take Bruce to the emergency room.” 

Phil scratched his head and nodded to himself, “Okay, what did the hospital say, did they put him on a hold?” 

Phil’s mind reels back to his last semester in undergrad that he spent in a children’s psych ward. He remembers kids coming in dancing between totally calm and wildly manic in the span of just a few minutes. He remembers parents so tired and defeated that the hospital was the only place they knew they could go, parents can only do so much until it’s out of their hands. 

“Yes, he calmed down enough to get him to the hospital, I think he knew that maybe he needed the help. His psychiatrist met us there and the hospital put him on one of those 72-hour holds,” she responded. 

“Do you know if they’re going to keep him after the hold expires?” 

As Phil waits for her to answer he sees Tony down the hallway, one of the security guards holding onto his forearm with the biggest scowl on his face. Phil pretends not to notice as Bruce’s cousin begins speaking, “I don’t know yet, I’m attending a meeting in a few hours with all the doctors, I’ll know then I think.” 

Phil puts up a ‘wait a second’ finger towards the guard and Tony as they walk into the office and pulls a sticky-note out to write a note to himself about all of this, “Okay, make sure you have the hospital call the school after the meeting so we get an update. I’ve got Bruce’s psychiatrist on record and I’m going to call him to see if I can either talk to Bruce or talk to him about all this. You did the right thing, okay?” 

Tony peaks up at the psychiatrist mention and half-heartedly attempts to detach himself from the guard as Phil hears her response, “Okay, thank you for calling and checking up on things, I’ve got to get back to work. Thank you again, Mr. Coulson.” 

“Of course, hopefully we’ll see you soon,” Phil hangs up after that and gives Tony and the guard and wary glance, “Do I want to know what happened?”

“Only if I get to know what happened to Bruce, why do you need to talk to his doctor?” 

Phil scoffed, “Aha, no. That’s not how this works and you know that. What happened?” 

“I caught him dismantling the security system,” the guard grumbles, giving a slight yank to Tony’s arm. 

“Only to make it better! Two of those cameras aren’t even on!” Tony squawked as the guard pulled him again. 

“Okay, thank you. He can stay with me here in the office until Principal Fury gets out of his meeting. Tony, sit.” 

Phil pretending to ignore Tony sticking out his tongue at the guard as he flounced behind the front desk to find something else to fix (code word: break) as the guard sighed and threw his hands up, walking out of the office. 

“That behavior isn’t cute, Tony, and no, I’m not telling you about Bruce, he can tell you himself if he wants when he comes back to school,” Phil smacked Tony’s hand away from the keyboard as he continued writing his note. 

“History class is boring, the teacher doesn’t even try to pretend she likes teaching us, I had to do something,” Tony shrugged and tapped his fingers on the desk, “What if the psychiatrist makes it so Bruce can’t talk, then how will he tell me what happened?” 

“If his psychiatrist hurts him in any way I’ll make sure he pays for it alright? Now get away from the printer, I don’t trust you,” Phil used the back of his chair to push Tony away from the printer. 

Tony huffed a sigh and waited a few seconds before reaching for the printer again with one eye on Phil.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry sorry. So a lot of stuff happens in this chapter and I promise to get the next chapter up sooner than usual so there's less confusion and crazy cause there's a bit of a cliff-hanger. I'm about to get on a plane though so I can't really do that right this instant but I wanted to get this done before I got on the plane. Here we go! Things are happening! exciting things! Hope you like it, thanks for reading and commenting, I love them and read them all!

Once a kid was placed at Marvel High it was highly unlikely that they would ever get the chance to return to a ‘normal’ school. When a school saw Marvel on a kid’s record they almost immediately said no. A good percent of students, almost half, dropped out junior or senior year anyway. Marvel was just a speed bump between jail or the streets. 

That was not the case for Sam Wilson. Sam Wilson was the shinning star of what Marvel High School could produce. After being expelled his 8th grade year for fighting he started his 9th grade year at Marvel. The teachers quickly realized he was too smart for his own good and also much better behaved than they thought. After a year at Marvel they started looking for any school that would take him. Through his sophomore year they looked and met with schools all over the city. Finally a science magnet school on Long Island caved and accepted him on a trial basis. 

When Sam started at Long Island Magnet his junior year he still found a way back to Marvel after school nearly everyday to visit the students he’d made friends with (IE, Steve) and the teachers and staff (IE, Hill and Coulson). Steve was a year younger than Sam but Sam rubbed off on him. Steve was less inclined to fight and generally more interested in his classes most days than he was before Sam came along.

Sam stared his freshman year at NYU’s Physics undergrad on a full ride in August. It was now nearing Thanksgiving and he still visited Steve (and by extension the rest of the group) at least once a week. 

Today he, Steve and Natasha were walking from the school to Natasha’s dance studio and then on to the library so Sam and Steve could study. 

“Tash, is anyone taking you home tonight after your classes? Besides you and your pocket knife, I mean,” Sam asked as they meandered down the sidewalk. 

Natasha laughed and shrugged, “I mean, Ivan always says he’ll come but that’s only sometimes. You guys can if you want I guess.” 

Sam and Steve nodded as they came up on the dance studio and split off from Natasha to head towards the library, “See you later, Tash!” Steve called as they kept walking. 

\--

Five hours later Sam and Steve were walking back down the sidewalk towards Natasha’s dance studio. They spent a few hours in the library, Sam helping Steve with his chemistry homework and Steve helping Sam with his American history homework. 

Sam paid for their dinner (some muffins and coffee from the café next to the library) while Steve used Sam’s cell phone to call his foster parents and told them he would be late after walking Natasha home. 

The only reason they said yes is because Sam was there and Sam is the only one of Steve’s friends from school they really trust. 

They were early to the studio and had to stand outside, starring into the window, as Mrs. Dustin corrected tiny little things for their Christmas performance coming up. 

Finally she let them go and Natasha was the first one out of the studio, undoing her hair from its high bun and tying it back into a low ponytail. Despite it being late November the weather was still pretending it was autumn and Natasha didn’t even bother to put her jacket on as they started walking. A few minutes into the walk she made a few half-hearted complaints about how she could definitely walk herself home and Steve laughed, “Come on, you know we’d even walk Thor home if he wanted us to, doesn’t kill ya to have a few more people walking with you.”

Natasha laughed and bumped her shoulder in Steve’s, “Thor runs the whole neighborhood, everyone might as well be walking home with him.” 

They kept walking a few more blocks, getting to Natasha’s apartment required them to backtrack from the studio and then start down a different road. As they were cutting through an alley they were stopped by the noise of a scuffle. 

Well. Less of a scuffle, more of an actual ‘knock-‘em-out’ fight. 

Down at the end of the alley they could see two figures aiming punches at each other. Steve started walking forward, probably aiming to stop the fight before Sam grabbed him, “No, you don’t know those guys. Let’s just call the cops and they can sort it out.”

Sam pulled his phone out as the fighting continued and Steve sighed and looked towards Natasha, who only shrugged. 

The operator answered after a few short rings and Sam started telling them what was going on. After he gave them their location he turned around to see Natasha walking down into the alley and Steve around down and in the fray of the fight. 

“Dammit.” 

\--

“Hey, why do you pick on someone your own size, huh?” Steve shouted, pushing the bigger of the two people fighting into the wall. 

The smaller one looked to be a teenager, probably only a little bit older than Natasha, his long hair covering his face, his left arm limp at his side and blood dripping from what was probably his nose. 

“Why don’t you mind you’re fucking business, kid?” the bigger guy yelled, pushing back on Steve. 

As Sam got closer he realized that Natasha wasn’t the only one who walked around with a pocketknife on a regular basis. 

Steve had his own out and was pressing it against the man’s neck, “I said, back off.” 

The man’s eyes floated from Steve to the stranger he had been fighting to Natasha and Sam. He lifted his hands up in surrender and slid out from Steve’s hold as it was loosened, the sound of sirens in the distance. 

“A’ight man. That’s fine,” the man looked at the teenager, “Better keep your feet under you kid.” 

Steve folded his knife back up and into his pocket and turned around to talk to the kid just as he spoke, “You didn’t have to do that, I had him on the ropes.” 

Steve scoffed, “Sure you did, just stick around and talk to the cops, maybe they can get that guy off the streets, or take you to the hospital or something.” 

The kid shook his head and pushed his hair out of his face, “No, it’s fine. No use.”

As the kid spoke Steve took a step back, his eyes searching the face of the kid now that he could see him properly. 

“Bucky?”

The teenager looked up and in turn searched Steve’s face, “Who?”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I take a lot of liberties with the justice system and with hospital privacy laws probably in this chapter. Don't mind me.

Phil dumped his empty coffee cup in the trashcan outside of the ER. The hospital Bruce was sent to was close to the school, maybe half a mile, so when Phil was done at the school (the last one to leave, yet again) he stopped by Starbucks and doubled-back to see what information he could get from Bruce’s psychiatrist. 

Phil had called earlier in the day and the doctor said he was willing to have a conversation with Phil on the basis that Bruce had actually asked about him, which was pretty surprising to Phil. 

The quickest way up to the ward Bruce was staying in was through the ER so Phil walked through the automatic doors, following behind a nurse, and started his walk through the ER to get to the elevators. 

He would’ve kept going if he hadn’t see Steve, Natasha and Sam in the waiting room with two police officers standing over them. 

“Guys, what happened? Are you guys alright?” Phil bustled over from the doorway to where they were sitting. The officer standing near them stood between the kids and Phil before he could get to them. 

“Officer, please. I’m a social worker, I know these kids, what happened?” 

Sam was sitting farthest away, his arms folded and his glare aimed at Steve and Natasha who were both finding the ground much more interesting than Phil at the moment. 

“They were caught fighting in a back alley,” the officer huffed. 

Steve protested, “Sam and Natasha weren’t. It was just me and… and this kid. We already called Sam’s dad, he’s coming to pick him up.” 

Phil sighed, “Is the other kid okay? Why were you even fighting in the first place?” 

Steve turned back to the ground and Sam gave him a brief glance before mumbling, “It was Bucky.” 

\--

Despite how good Phil appears to be at his job he’s still pretty terrible at his job sometimes. There are so many students and so many stories it’s hard to keep track of them all. 

Phil also isn’t very good at remembering who knows about what for each student. He tries to keep up with it, but Phil can only listen in on so much gossip and so many private conversations before he feels bad. 

It took him almost a month to realize that Natasha was discretely setting fire to most small things in the school. When Phil realized it was her he found out that Bruce, Clint and Tony already knew and just decided not to tell Phil. 

Because of things like that, Phil isn’t surprised that Sam knows about Bucky. 

He is, however, surprised about Bucky appearing anywhere at all. 

“Officer, please. I can watch them until their guardians arrive, all this really isn’t necessary,” Phil tried again. 

“The girl punched one of the officers!” he shouted back. 

Phil ran his hands through his thinning hair and gave a tired look to Natasha, who didn’t even shrug, “He was hurting Bucky.” 

Phil turned to look at the officer and raised his eyebrows. The officer put his hands in his pocket and shrugged, “I can only release them to a guardian, and this one,” he angled his shoulder to Natasha, “is going to juvie to schedule a court date, if anyone else would like to come along?” 

Phil groaned and slid into a chair a few seats away from the teens, “The good ol’ NYPD, always on the job, huh?” 

\--

While waiting for Sam’s father, Ivan and Steve’s foster parents Phil made a few phone calls. He called Bruce’s psychiatrist to let him know he wouldn’t make it upstairs but promised he’d come in before school tomorrow if Bruce still wanted to see him. 

He called Bruce’s cousin to see what she had heard and to tell her his plan. 

And then he called Bucky’s parents, because apparently no one had thought to do that yet. 

He’d only spoken to them one time, when he first met Steve and all he would talk about was Bucky. They said they were trying to move on with their lives and while they loved their son and his best friend, they could only do so much. 

They’d moved to Tacoma, Washington a year later and when Phil got them on the line they said they would try and get a flight into New York City tomorrow. 

After half an hour, and a few more arguments they let Sam leave unaccompanied because he was an adult, thank you, and Ivan had shown up and promised that he and Natasha would be present in juvenile court in the morning. 

They hadn’t gotten ahold of Jon but Martha was on her way from her job on the other side of town, so Steve would be accounted for soon. 

Phil and the officer had come to a non-verbal agreement that Phil wasn’t leaving until he was leaving and they were happily ignoring each other while Phil tried to draw Steve out. 

“He doesn’t remember me,” Steve muttered finally as Phil put a cup on coffee on the floor beside Steve’s foot. 

“It’s been a while, almost five years,” Phil offered, taking a sip from his own cup. 

Steve picked up the cup but didn’t take a drink from it, just held it tightly in his hands, “There was some guy trying to beat him up, when we got the guy away from him he tried to fight us too until the police came.”

“He was probably just scared,” Phil set his coffee down on the tile floor and leaned back in the waiting room chair, “No one even knows what he’s been doing all this time. He just needs some time to adjust.” 

Steve shrugged and took a sip off his coffee before making a face and setting it back down, “I can’t believe you drink this stuff,” he scoffed and Phil laughed, bumping his shoulder up against Steve’s. 

After a few minutes of silence Steve muttered into his lap, “Do you think I could talk to him?” 

Phil stutters before he looks at the officer, making sure he’s not really paying attention, “Not tonight, I don’t think. I’m going to make sure his parents know they can call me though, I can let you know what I know?” 

Steve shrugs, “I just… Yeah. Thanks.”

They sit again in silence until Steve finally remembers what was bugging him about Phil showing up in the first place, “How did you know we were here? No one called you, right?”

Phil sighed, “No I was… Um. Bruce is upstairs. In the psychiatric ward. I was going to go see him, figure out how to get him back to school.” 

“You skipped seeing Bruce to sit with us?” Steve raised his eyebrows and gave Phil a look, “He’s a lot more important than us.” 

Phil shook his head, “It’s fine. I’m going to see Bruce in the morning. He’ll understand, you guys are important too, alright?” 

Steve nodded just as Martha came bustling through the door to the emergency room. Phil stood up to greet here as Steve tried to shrink further into the chair. 

“Oh, Mr. Coulson, I didn’t know they called you,” she looked from Phil to Steve to the police officer still standing in their space and blinked, “they told me Steve had gotten into some kind of fight?” 

Phil shook his head just as the officer was about to speak up, “I was already here in the hospital when I saw them. And I believe the fight was just a misunderstanding, Steve was trying to break up the fight and got caught in the fray, right Steve?” 

Steve looked up from where he was intently trying to burn a hole in his jeans with his eyes and nodded at Martha, “I didn’t mean to get in trouble, or to make you come all the way over here from work… I was only trying to help.” 

Martha smiled softly at Steve and gestured for Steve to get up, “It’s alright, Steven, I know how you can be about helping people. Can I take Steven home?” Martha asked, giving a glance to the officer, who shrugged and took a few steps back. 

Steve looked at Phil and stood up, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow? Right?” 

Phil nodded, “Of course, Steve. Don’t find anymore fights on the way home, okay?”

Steve smiled down at the ground, “I’ll do my best.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah? Ah? New chapter? ah? Hope you enjoy it!

Even though Natasha was arguably the best dancer at Marvel she often skipped her school dance class to sit in Pepper’s office, or at the front desk with Hill and sometimes back in Phil’s office. 

Today was no different; she was currently standing in front of Phil’s bookshelf, a small stack of post-it notes, a pen, and piles of books already on the floor. Natasha’s habit was to consistently rearrange the bookshelf in orders that only she could figure out. The only way Phil would let her do it is if she at least labeled where certain books were. 

Phil didn’t have many books but since the school didn’t have enough money or space for a proper library a few of the teachers (and people like Phil and Pepper) had their own bookshelves that the students could use after they proved themselves trustworthy to take books. Natasha was trustworthy enough to touch all the books. 

Typically Phil would complain a little bit about his bookshelf’s lack of autonomy but today he was too busy. 

Bruce’s insurance company wouldn’t let him stay in the hospital longer than the original hold and there weren’t any outpatient programs willing to take him yet. Bucky was still in the hospital. Steve was on the verge of who knows what kind of meltdown. Tony’s doctor had upped his medication (again). Thor was skipping classes in no clear pattern. Clint was dancing on his last string at the shelter and Natasha…

“How’d the court date go?” Phil muttered from behind his computer screen. 

Natasha missed school two days ago to attend her juvenile court date for swinging at the cop who tried to put Bucky in a choke hold. Before this the only thing on Natasha’s actual police record (school records were a different story) was her arson from the locker room. Phil hoped they would be lenient. 

Natasha shrugged, moving Phil’s copy of Of Mice and Men to the second shelf that she had labeled ‘Published before 1950’ with one of the sticky notes. 

“I have to spend two weekends in juvie and do 30 hours of community service,” She moved a book that Phil couldn’t see to the third shelf, of which she had labeled ‘Best books published before 1940’. 

“Could’ve been worse,” Phil offered, although she didn’t seem too upset about her punishment. 

“Yeah, Steve’s friend could be dead.” 

Well. She wasn’t wrong.

Phil shrugged and continued tapping through the list of group homes that one of his fellow social workers had sent him to see if he could find anywhere for Clint to stay. 

The room was silent for a few more minutes, it was nearing lunchtime and the hallways in the back of the front office always got a little louder around this time but Phil’s office didn’t pick up much of the noise. 

Natasha broke the silence, “How is Bucky?” 

Phil blinked at the screen and rubbed his eyes, “Uh. He’s doing better. He was pretty malnourished according to the doctors. He’s not talking much though, that might take a while.” 

“His parents are good, right?” Natasha had a book in her hand but Phil couldn’t see the title. She was pondering where it should go on the shelf as she asked. 

“Of course they are, they took Steve in, remember?” 

Too be honest, Phil doesn’t know one way or the other how ‘good’ Bucky’s parents were in the past or in the present. Sure, they took in Steve but the only thing Steve ever talked about for a good long while was Bucky. They could’ve been in the slums of some faraway country and Phil probably could’ve never guessed it the way Steve spoke about his best friend. 

They were good enough people to come back and make sure their son was okay after being missing for nearly six years, but Phil thought they were honestly doing it out of blood requirements rather than a love for their child. 

Phil wasn’t going to tell these things to Natasha though. 

“You think Steve will let them take him back to Washington?” 

Phil huffed a laugh, “There’s no way.” 

\-- 

After Natasha finally went back to class Phil’s office was a flurry of activity. Tony had poured an open ink pen all over another student so Phil had to find a new, uniform appropriate shirt for the kid to wear for the rest of the day while valiantly trying not to laugh at the ridiculous pattern it left over his arms, torso and face. 

Two separate students miraculously misplaced their shoes while another student apparently lost a bet and had their pants stolen while they were in gym class and a freshman had decided that the pair of scissors he was using were perfect for cutting up his shirt while still in class. 

By the time Phil finally got to sit back down it was 5 minutes after the bell for the end of the day rung and he still had at least two hours worth of work to do that couldn’t get done earlier. 

After a quick break to the soda machine (and the snack machine that the teachers kept claiming didn’t exist) Phil came back to his office to find Steve sitting on the couch with a pile of homework and books out. 

Phil didn’t bother him, just sat down at his desk and opened up his email tab and started in on his responses while Steve worked quietly on the other side of the room. 

“I thought the school got rid of the snack machine…” Steve muttered into his math workbook, a grin Phil could see from his desk and Phil shrugged. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, what snack machine?” Steve snickered as Phil tossed an M&M across the room to hit Steve’s shoulder and drop to the couch. 

“I guess that’s where Ms. Stanton keeps getting her Cheetos from in between classes.”

“You know nothing about what you’ve seen transpire within these walls involving packaged foods,” Phil aimed another M&M as Steve continued to laugh, barely catching his workbook before it fell to the ground. 

After he was done trying to hold in a laugh every two seconds Steve went back to work, the two M&M’s in his mouth, while Phil continued on down his list of unread emails. 

Once Phil had addressed or decided he would address each of the emails he’d gotten while he was gone he looked up at Steve, “The doctors say Bucky is going to be okay. He’s probably going to still be in the hospital for a few more days maybe.” 

Steve shrugged and continued writing, “I don’t think his parents want to see me.” 

“Bucky’s almost 18 I think he can decide those things for himself, I could take you down there after school tomorrow if you want.” 

Steve dropped his pen and ran his hands through his hair, letting out a huff. 

“Steve. His parents want to go back to Washington. If you want your best friend back I think you need to go talk to him,” Phil worked hard to ignore the glare that Steve shot him from between his fingers. 

“You know. Sometimes I’m pretty sure you’re actually not even a social worker at all. No social worker actually says stuff like that, real stuff.” 

“Well, this one does. And this one is going to go take you to see your friend tomorrow, alright?” 

Steve let his hands fall from his face and looked down into his lap, pulling at a thread on his jeans. 

“Okay…” he mumbled, “Okay. I’ll go see him tomorrow.” 

Phil clapped his hand on his desk, “Good. Now, finish your homework, I can’t have you here all night.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. Life is hard. I work at a school and we just got a new principal and over 70% of the staff will not be returning next year because the principal fired them so that's been... fun. Anyway, here's the chapter. 
> 
> Obviously, Bucky hasn't been brainwashed (at least not to the extent or even within the reach of how he is in canon) and he hasn't lost his arm but there are allusions to those (Bucky not realizing it was Steve, and his arm being hurt). So. Yeah. Here you go. Chapter. Hope it's good.

The next day, after school was let out, Phil and Steve took the subway across town to the hospital that both Bucky and Bruce were staying at. After making sure that Steve was actually going to go into the room to talk to Bucky Phil made a beeline straight for the psych ward where Bruce was staying. 

Today was the last day Bruce could stay in the hospital. The insurance company had been calling his cousin every few hours over the past two days to remind her that Bruce had to leave in the morning. 

The last time Phil had been on this floor of the hospital was during one of his internships in grad school, back when he though maybe being a psychologist was for him. 

(Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.) 

The hospital had done a good job at making it seem a little less like a hospital and more like a group home or a residential facility. It looked like that when Phil did his internship also, but he just couldn’t stand the way the hospital felt. 

The school was much better. 

After looking around for a few minutes, Phil found Bruce in the communal space near the nurses’ desk, playing chess with another teenager who looked thoroughly confused at what was happening on the board before him. 

“Be careful, Bruce always wins at chess, no matter who he’s playing,” Phil said to the kid as he pulled out a chair at the table and sat down to watch. 

Bruce smiled down at the chessboard as he made his next move and sat back against the chair, “Hi, Mr. Coulson.” 

Phil blinked, “Mr. Coulson?” he teased, “Not even Agent, or Phil? We’ve got to get you back to school, Bruce, back under the influence of Tony and the gang.” 

Bruce continued smiling, but he didn’t say anything else. After a few brief moments of staring at the board the other teenager stood up, “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m gonna go watch TV” and left the table. 

Phil shrugged and switched chairs so he could be in the recently vacated spot. He looked at the board for a little bit and then moved one of his pieces. 

“I have to go back to school?” Bruce asked, scooting his chair so he could see the board from a different angle as he looked for his next move. 

“We’d all like for you to come back, Clint sucks at yoga when you’re not there to help him and Tony can’t find anyone else to talk science-shop to,” Phil offered. 

Bruce finally moved one of his pieces forward, “My cousin said if I can’t get into an outpatient program the school won’t let me come back.” 

“We’ll have a meeting about it, your cousin, you, Principal Fury, your social worker and your doctors… and me, of course. You’ll get to come back, you didn’t do anything to the school.” 

Phil moved a knight… somewhere; to be honest he doesn’t know how to play chess either. 

Bruce responded with a quick move, “check,” and then, “I have before though, schools don’t like that and I don’t blame them.” 

Phil sighed and looked above the board so he could look Bruce in the eyes, “Do you want to go to school again?” 

Bruce looked down at the chessboard and then to his lap and nodded. 

Phil moved his piece, “Then you’re going to come back to school, we’ll make sure of it.” 

\--

Steve wasn’t nervous, thank you. Bucky (had been) his best friend, since before Steve could remember and there was no reason to be nervous about seeing him again after four years. 

Except Bucky acted like he’d never even seen Steve’s face before. 

Except that it was Steve’s fault in the first place that Bucky had been missing as long as he had. 

Steve’s been hearing that it wasn’t his fault from day one. From Bucky’s parents, from his social worker, from Phil and even from his teachers. 

But it was. 

Steve was the one who wanted to play hide and seek in the alley on the way back from school and couldn’t find Bucky after he’d gone off to hide. Bucky just wanted to go home and Steve got him taken for playing a stupid game on a street they shouldn’t have been on. 

“Steve, it’s so good to see you!” Bucky’s mom attempted to wrap Steve up in a half-hearted hug while his father stood off to the side, looking down the hallway with his arms crossed. 

“It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Barnes… I was wondering if I could talk to Bucky?” 

Bucky’s mom looked like she had been crying since they’d gotten to New York, but she also kind of always looked like that. 

After Bucky went missing Steve never saw her without a handkerchief or the red puffy eyes that came with crying. 

“Of course, Steve,” she cleared her throat, “The doctors are going to release him from the hospital tomorrow or the next day and we’ll be leaving for Washington a few days after that, I’m sure he’d love to see you before we left.”

Steve nodded, “Um… thanks, thank you, ma’am.” 

She turned back around and Steve could hear the increase in her sniffling as she tried to hide her face. 

Steve sighed and opened the door. 

Bucky looked much better in the hospital room than he did in the alley that Steve found him in. 

He wasn’t in the bed; he was over by the window, sweatpants and a zip-up hoodie covered in logos depicting support for Washington State. The curtains were pulled back so he could see out over the city and he had dragged the IV stand along with him. 

His hair was longer than Steve had ever seen it and looked like it had maybe been washed a day or two ago but not brushed since then, and the arm that he’d been avoiding in the fight in the alley was in a sling set over the hoodie. 

Steve blinked and knocked on the open door. 

“Hey.” 

Steve scuffed his foot on the floor and shoved his hands in his pockets, “Hey.” 

“It’s been a while, huh?” Bucky’s voice was deeper, puberty having set in years ago, “You look… bigger.” 

Steve let his shoulders flop up and down in a shrug and he let himself sit down in the chair by the door, “It’s been over 4 years, figured I’d hit a growth spurt eventually.” 

Bucky’s lips turned up in a smile and he turned away from the window and slouched against the wall, “I didn’t know my parents had moved until they gave me these clothes to wear… What’d they end up doing with you, did you go to Washington with them?” 

Steve picked at a piece of fuzz on his jeans and shook his head, “No… I stayed here. Been jumping through a few foster families.” 

Steve couldn’t read Bucky’s face but he seemed unimpressed, “Your parents couldn’t stay here. The police closed your case and I guess being in the city was too hard for them.” 

“So they left you here?” 

“They thought you were dead, Buck.” 

“Well, I wasn’t.” 

Steve thought about that a lot. 

The police said he was never going to be found after almost two weeks of constantly looking for him. They didn’t exactly say he was dead but Bucky’s parents had gone to a therapist and they said that grieving Bucky as if he had died would be a good way to continue on with their lives. 

Their grieving process took them all the way to Washington, leaving Steve behind with the only picture of Bucky they hadn’t put into storage. 

Steve sighed, “I know, obviously.” 

Just as Bucky was about to respond to Steve the door opened, revealing Phil Coulson on the other side, “Bucky, your parents want to know what you want for dinner?” 

Bucky raised his eyebrows at Steve and Steve huffed, “Bucky this is Phil Coulson, he’s a social worker at Marvel, where I go to school.”

“Shit, Steve, you got sent to Marvel?” Bucky laughed, “I thought I had it bad these past four years.” 

Bucky then shrugged, “Whatever they want, I don’t care.” 

Phil nodded, “Steve, we should go, we’ll come back tomorrow.” 

Steve stood up and stuck his hands in his pockets, turning to start walking to the door, “Stevie!” 

Steve stopped to look at Bucky, “Yeah, Buck?” 

Bucky lifted his uninjured hand in a floppy gesture and shrugged, “I missed you, come back tomorrow, okay?” 

“Of course.” 

Steve saw Bucky’s smile for the first time in over four years and he couldn’t help but smile back.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> woah look at that, a new chapter, finally. Sorry for all the delays, here it is!

Thor stared at the wall and picked at the lint on the couch in his living room. 

Apparently the most appropriate time to hold a leadership meeting for the Scandinavian mob is 8:30 in the morning, because the cops don’t think they’d even be awake that early or some shit. 

Turns out, not only is the Scandinavian mob up at 8:30 in the morning, they’re also up all night and through part of the day. Thor would know, he’s been running errands for his Dad and his right-hand man since 7pm the night before. 

Thor doesn’t really mind though. He’s going to take over the family business one day and then he can sleep all that he wants and maybe even treat people decently.

For now though, he’s watching his Dad and three of his top guys try and figure out how three of their drug-sorting workers and two of their cage fighters have escaped in as many weeks. 

Thor tries not to think about that fact that his father has drug-sorters and cage fighters. He tries not to picture his father as a human trafficker. 

Thor thinks about a Venti Americano from Starbucks instead and maybe getting to school in time to go to English class. His teacher, Mr. Galavant, was letting them write their own books and while Thor’s handwriting and grammar were atrocious he gave Thor an A on the last chapter he turned in. 

“Thor!” 

Thor blinked and looked up, his father was sitting at the kitchen table that was pushed into the corner and his other men were leaning over the table or sitting in the mismatch of chairs set up around it. 

“Yes, father?” 

“You said that friend of yours, the younger Barton, he talked to his brother?” 

Thor nodded, “Yes, sir.” 

“And the older brother, what did he say?” 

Thor shrugged, “Nothing, really. Just that he stopped working for you and moved on to something else, stuff that got him caught. Why are you asking about this, father?” 

Thor’s father and his men looked at each other and spoke in low tones together for a few minutes. Thor went back to staring at his shoes and letting his eyes fade in and out of focus between them and the carpet underneath. 

“Barton may not have been the one to ruin our family, son, but he still owes us much. His debt to me isn’t paid.”

Thor looked up and tilted his head in question, “He’s in prison though, how can he pay you back there?” 

Thor’s father and his men laughed, loud and boisterous while Thor continued to look at them with confusion. It was an honest question, how would Clint’s brother be able to do anything in prison, they hardly let you get letters out let along whatever sort of payment his father would want?

“Don’t worry about it son, you’re finished here, go to school,” Thor’s father was still laughing, “Make sure you don’t tell that Barton boy that we asked about him again. Wouldn’t want my boy wasting time with trouble like that.” 

Thor sighed and then nodded, “yes, father.” 

Thor got his his backpack from behind the couch, and high-tailed it out of the living room before his father or one of his men could change their minds.

\--

Nick Fury looked up from his desk just as a substitute manhandled two of his students into his office. 

Clint Barton and Tony Stark. Of course. 

Tony was smirking, his arms crossed and his shirt ruffled from the walk down the hallway and Clint was still struggling against the much bigger substitute who had a pretty strong hold on his forearm. 

“Its only 10am,” Fury tried to hold back a sigh. 

“Principal Fury, I’ve been teaching and substitute teaching for nearly 35 years and I’ve never met two students that were this bad!” He thrust his free arm at Tony and shook Clint’s arm for effect, “The freshman and sophomore classes were combined for a lesson and I haven’t experienced such disrespect in my life!” 

“Guess you never taught at Marvel then,” Tony scoffed. 

“Tony, keep your mouth shut,” Fury hissed, and then turned to the substitute, “Alright, Mr. Fuller, is it? I’ll handle it, make sure you fill out an office referral for Ms. Hill in the front before you return to your class.” 

Mr. Fuller let go of Clint’s arm and huffed, “If you ask me they could both stand to have someone wash their mouths out with some strong soap!” 

“Yeah, well nobody asked you,” Clint said to his back as he left the room. The teacher paused, curled his hands into a tight fist and then kept walking back out of the office. 

“Barton!” Fury shouted, pushing his chair away from his desk to stand up. 

“Yes sir?” Clint turned around and gave Fury the infamous ‘Barton Smile’ (according to Phil Coulson, his brother does it too). 

“Shut up.”

Clint shrugged. 

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose, “What did you do to that man?” 

“The guy doesn’t know anything about algebra, I was just correcting his mistakes,” Tony offered, sitting down in the chair in front of Fury’s desk and stretching his feet out, sliding down in the chair.

Tony correcting someone’s mistakes usually involved long draw-out explanations that could go on for an entire class period if left alone and often-included insults with words Fury didn’t even know. Also way too many cuss words that Fury also didn’t even know. 

“And you, Barton?” 

Clint was currently sitting on the desk, his feet in the chair instead of the rest of his body, tapping his fingers on the desk and twirling a pen around with his other hand. 

“I was just using Mr. Fuller as target practice, I thought maybe he’d be better at that than teaching.” 

Now that Fury thought about it, the substituted did seem to have an odd red mark on the side of his face. 

“I know you two are just doing this to get on our nerves but you have to go to your next period, you can’t spend all day in the office.” 

“Can we go hang out with Agent?” Tony asked, twisting in the chair to pull his hood up over his head. 

“Nope, you’re stuck with me, he’s not here today.” 

“Where is he?” Clint. 

“None of your business, he’ll be back tomorrow.” 

Clint looked down at Tony and they had a silent conversation, eyebrows, sign language, crude gestures and all before Tony spoke, “Is it Bruce? Is he coming back?” 

“I said it’s none of your business, go wait in the front office until it’s time for next period.” 

Clint sighed and pushed himself off the desk, ambling towards the chairs in the front office at Tony dragged himself out of the chair, pointing his fingers at his eyes and then at Fury, “You know we’ll figure it out.” 

Fury waved a hand at Tony and sat back down behind his desk. 

Instead of sitting one of the chairs Clint leaned over Ms. Hill’s desk as Thor, who had just walked in, was signing himself in on the other side. 

“Hey Thor,” Clint offered. 

After the fight Thor and Clint had been okay, they talked a little bit about Clint’s excursion upstate but besides that they were back to their regularly scheduled programming. 

“Hello Clint, why are you and Tony in the office?” 

Clint fiddled around with a few of the papers on the desk before Ms. Hill smacked his hand away and half-heartedly hissed a 'stop it!', he shrugged, “Substitute teacher doesn’t know how to have any fun.” 

Ms. Hill hmm'ed with an unimpressed tone, "Your kind of fun doesn't belong anywhere inside a school building, let alone a classroom."

"That's what she said," Tony responded, smiling at Ms. Hill's glare from his side of the office.

Thor laughed and picked up his tardy pass from Ms. Hill, “Good luck with that, see you guys at lunch?” 

Clint nodded and Tony waved his hand from the group of chairs he had commandeered, “See ya, point break!” 

Clint and Thor had gotten over the fight, but apparently no one else had. Awesome.

Thor smiled, despite the jab and walked out to his class, “See you, Tony!”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. The end of the year is always hectic at work and my sister got married this weekend so I've been busy with the wedding and with trying to balance work and stories sort of had to go on the backburner. This story is also starting to get really plot-twisty and weird so I'm trying to get it back on track but who knows how that will work out. Here's the next chapter! Thanks for sticking with me!

“Father, I thought Justin wasn’t getting out of jail until next summer?” Thor question as he walked into the front hallway from his last errand. It was 11am, too late to go to school and almost too late to even try to go back to sleep. 

While Thor had been out he’d seen at least two guys who he knew for sure were supposed to still be in jail. 

It was only a day since the conversation with his father about Clint’s brother and even though he has a lot of power Thor doubts he has enough power to get people out of prison.

As Thor toed off his shoes and dropped his keys on the front table he didn’t hear anyone respond to him but he knew his father would be home. 

“Father?” Thor tried again. 

This time, instead of just talking there was the distinct sound of flesh hitting flesh. 

When Thor entered the living room he wished he could’ve walked back out. 

His father was standing behind the couch, watching the scene ahead. His two henchmen were standing behind a chair while Thor’s oldest cousin (the only one who actually worked at a jail instead of being stuck in one) was punching the person tied to said chair. 

The person in the chair was almost unrecognizable but Thor could notice that floppy hair and green eyes anywhere. It was Clint’s brother, it had to be. 

“Father? What… what’s going on?” 

“We’re doing what is right for the family, son. Barton owes us and we’re just getting our payment,” his father turned to his cousin and called to him in the Old Language, the one that Thor’s father said he was still too young to learn. They had a brief conversation while Clint’s brother spit blood into his lap. 

His cousin washed his hands on a wet towel and pulled on his uniform jacket from the jail, ruffling Thor’s hair as he left. 

Thor caught eyes with the older Barton for a long moment and sat down against the wall. 

\--

Clint scuffed his feet on the floor of the office as he waited. It was the next day, the day after that substitute had kicked him and Tony out of class. His regular teacher, Ms. Carlos, was back and as long as Clint didn’t aim at people she let him shoot pencils and paperclips across the classroom in peace. 

That was hours ago, so she couldn’t be mad about it now. His English teacher let them watch a movie and Clint didn’t do anything out of the ordinary in the cafeteria. Gym class was fine even though Clint almost started a fight when one of the huge football player juniors but the fight was stopped before the teacher could even notice. 

So he wasn’t in the office because of any of them, Ms. Hill had called up for him a few minutes ago, she didn’t say why. 

Maybe Agent needed his help with something, or someone else from the office. Agent liked to call them out of class and get them to help setting stuff up or making copies in the office, especially in the afternoon which was the most boring part of the day. 

Or maybe it was for Bruce. He was finally back today; staying in Fury’s office with the work he needed to make up, Clint could see him through the window. 

After about five more minutes of Clint staring at different points in the office three people came out and stood in front of him; Agent, a probation officer and Clint’s social worker from the shelter. 

“Clint, let’s go back to my office, okay?” 

Clint blinked at the two people beside Agent for a second and then nodded, shuffling behind them through the back hallway. 

“Am I in trouble or something?” Clint asked as they walked into Agent’s office and shut the door. Clint started at the sound and rubbed his ear, readjusting his hearing aid. 

“No, Clint. Come sit down,” the social worker, Malcolm or Max or something, Clint could never remember. 

Clint sat down on the couch next to her while the probation officer and Agent sat down in the chairs across from them. 

“When is the last time you talked to your brother, Clint?” he asked. 

Clint looked over at the probation officer, who was look down at the folder in his hands, and then at Agent, who looked like he was about to throw a fit like the kinds he throws when Tony refuses to stop talking when they try and do yoga. 

“At the jail, when Tony and I drove up there, why?” 

He ignored his question, “You didn’t ever call him or write him a letter or anything like that after you saw him?” 

Clint shifted on the couch and crossed his arms, “No, he’s an asshole. Agent, what’s going on?” 

The social worker and the probation officer gave Coulson a look and he sighed, “Your brother escaped last night.” 

Clint raised his eyebrows, “Escaped? Like… Like, Catch Me If You Can escaped?”

“Do you know where he would go Clint? Anyone he’d stay with, places he’d stay?” he kept pushing. 

“My brother is too stupid to escape prison and I don’t know where he’d go,” Clint tossed his body back into the couch and crossed his arms in front of him. Coulson sighed. So did Malcolm/Max. 

The probation officer, however, leaned forward, “Do you know why your brother went to jail?”

Clint shrugged into the couch, “the social workers wouldn’t tell me, probably got caught breaking into someone’s house, he likes that kind of crap.” 

“He’s a murderer, kid. Killed a lady and her son. If he gets found by the wrong people you won’t have a brother anymore,” Clint stood up from the couch, almost toe-to-toe with the probation officer causing Coulson and Malcolm/Max to stand up. 

“My brother isn’t a murderer,” Clint hissed. 

The probation officer scoffed, “Your brother is bad news, wouldn’t be surprised if we see you upstate in a few years too.” 

Clint closed his hands into fists at his side and glared at the officer until Coulson pulled him back, pushing him back down onto the couch as the social worker stepped between them. 

“Officer, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t encourage this kind of behavior with a child. If he says he doesn’t know where his brother is, I believe him.” 

The officer put his hands up and moved back to lean against the table, “His brother is going to come and find him, it’s only a matter of time.” 

Coulson looked down at Clint, who was still fuming, his hands practically white from the pressure he was putting on them, “Clint, go to Principal Fury’s officer, Bruce is in there, you guys should catch up.” 

Phil could hear Clint’s heavy breathing for a few moments before Clint stood up, crossed his arms with his fists still closed under his armpits and walked out into the hallway. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you guys talk to him,” he sighed, pulling a chair out from under the table and collapsing into it, “look, I’m here, you’re at the shelter, if Barney finds Clint, we’ll know.” 

“The kid is probably lying, he lied to get all the way to Buffalo, why would he start telling the truth now?” Coulson stared at the ground instead of punching the probation officer. 

Malcolm/Max sighed, “I found another placement for Clint, a group home on the other side of town, the school over there is willing to take him too.” 

“Should just put him in juvie.”

Coulson groaned, “Moving him or putting him in juvenile detention is just going to make this worse and I’m sure you both know that.”

“He’s on his last leg at the shelter, they’re going to make him move soon anyway, this just moves up the time,” Malcolm/Max picked his bag up off the floor and shrugged, “He can stay here through the end of the week, it’s the best I can do.” 

The probation officer picked his papers up and pushed himself off the table, “We’ll keep looking at Barton’s associates, see what we can dig up, if the kid changes his mind, let me know.” 

Coulson waved his hand at the officer and huffed, “Just… I’ll tell him that you guys are moving him, it might go over easier with me.” 

Coulson kept his door closed when they left.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is hard and sometimes writing a massive story like this takes a backseat to other, easier to write stories, and things like work and making money. But anyway, here's the next chapter! Hope you enjoy it!

Tony blinked up from his tablet when the car rolled to a stop in front of the school. He closed the app he had open and slid the tablet into his bag. Before he could open the door and slide out his mother grabbed his arm, turning him to face her while she fixed his collar. 

After the social worker had visited she was staying at home more often, having brunch with her friends in the city, spending the afternoons having Jarvis drive her around to the different parks and art museums. 

Howard had been hiding in his lab, the code still unbreakable for Tony to be allowed in. Howard had yet to realize that the 10 available Research and Development floors below their condo let Tony have free range of their projects. Fine by Tony. 

This morning Maria had accompanied Tony to his bi-weekly meeting with his therapist. Tony appreciated her presence but it was still weird for him to see her sitting next to him, straightening out his sweater and trying to flatten his hair. 

“Mom, I’m already late,” Tony muttered, pulling away. 

Maria sighed, “I know, but we can’t have you going to school looking improper, I won’t allow it.” 

Tony snickered and batted her hands away, “I look fine, mom, I’ll see you tonight for dinner, right?” 

Maria placed a kiss on her son’s cheek, “Of course.” 

Tony nodded and kissed her back, grabbing his backpack and opening the door. He waved once the door was shut and shuffled up the stairs. 

When he arrived at the office he noticed Clint and Bruce sitting in Principal Fury’s office, the door shut but the blinds were up. Ms. Potts was sitting at the front desk and Tony smiled, “Ms. Potts, any chance you won’t write me a tardy note? My doctor is calling later.” 

She looked up and sighed, smiling back, “The office already called, give it five minutes and the passing period bell will ring.” 

Tony nodded, just as he was about to speak Mr. Coulson walked into the front section of the office, a probation officer and a man Tony hadn’t seen before following him. Mr. Coulson had his serious ‘Agent of the Cause’ face on and the two men just looked annoyed. 

As they signed out in the visitors’ binder Tony stared at Coulson, “Who’re these guys, Agent?” 

Coulson sighed, “Don’t worry about it, Tony.” 

Tony blinked, no joking, not even a sarcastic comment? 

“Must be your lawyer, all your former corporate espionage adventures finally caught up to you?” Tony tried again; Tony was nothing if not persistent. 

Coulson scoffed, “Something like that, did you just get here?” 

Tony always won, “Yeah, had a meeting with my therapist this morning, Ms. Potts already got it covered.” 

“Stay here, alright? I’m going to get the others out of class, we’re doing group a little early this week.” 

“Thor isn’t here today, Mr. Coulson,” Ms. Potts called from behind her desk. 

Tony pretended not to notice that the probation officer had stopped mid-signature, his glance floating between Tony and Coulson at the mention of Thor’s name. 

“That’s fine, we can still meet, can you call Natasha and Steve out of their classes please?” Ms. Potts nodded and Tony shrugged. 

As the men continued the process of signing out, Ms. Potts called to Natasha’s classroom and Steve’s classroom, catching them before bell rang. The door to Principal Fury’s office had opened and Bruce had walked out, Clint following close behind, his glare directed at the two men. 

“Bruce, you’re back!” Tony called, dropping his backpack in one of the seats against the wall and walking over to the other boy. 

Bruce smiled, “Hey, Tony. Good to see you too, stayed out of trouble while I was gone right?” 

Tony shrugged, “Only one totally school-sanctioned explosion, they’re not nearly as fun without you here.” 

“Naturally,” Bruce agreed. 

As they talked, someone came into the office, just as the two men were about to leave. 

It was Thor, his large frame almost dwarfing the man not in uniform, his hair hanging down out of a loose ponytail, his uniform shirt just barely tucked in. 

If Thor’s facial expression switched from annoyed at the inconvenience to panic when his eyes landed on the officer, Tony pretended not to notice that too. 

“Thor, glad you could make it to school today,” Coulson called from where Clint and Bruce had started following him back to his office, “We’re meeting in my office for a little bit, want to wait here for Natasha and Steve to get here?” 

Thor exhaled, running his fingers through his hair, letting his ponytail become even more tangled, his eyes glanced between Coulson, the officer and Clint, who’d moved to slouch against the wall. 

Thor nodded, “Of course, sure.” 

Coulson gave him a look, one that said he wouldn’t leave school today without a proper conversation and nodded, turning down the hallway with Clint and Bruce. 

“I’ll wait too, Agent!” 

Coulson waved his hand behind him and Tony watched as Thor stepped to the side to let the two men pass, intentionally looking away from them as they left. 

Thor sat down next to Tony’s backpack, pulling his hair out of the ponytail and fixing it back up again. 

“Something going on, Pointbreak?” Tony asked, sitting down on the other side of his backpack. 

“No, Tony, don’t worry about it,” he sighed, dropping his arms. 

“Really? ‘Cause you and Coulson don’t seem to be having such good days.”

Thor glared, “I just got here, how would you know what kind of day I’m having?” 

Tony lifted his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “Alright, man. I’m just asking.” 

“It’s… It’s fine, Tony. Just… you know how it is, with fathers.” 

Tony did know how it was with fathers, more so than the others. Tony and Thor didn’t ever really get along, but they did understand each other. Both sons of two powerful men, powerful in very different ways, both of them nothing but disappointments to the family name. 

“Yeah… Yeah I know.” 

Tony and Thor sat in silence for a moment, they could hear Natasha and Steve talking as they came down the hall, a minute or two still ahead of the bell before the next class. 

“It’s dumb, I know, but Agent can help, you know he can,” Tony offered, looking at his backpack, playing with the straps. 

“I got it covered, Tony.”

Tony nodded, “I know you do, but just in case…” 

Before Tony could say anymore the day of interruptions continued as Natasha and Steve entered the office, “What’s going on?” Steve asked as Natasha walked over to Ms. Potts’ desk to say hello. 

“Agent wanted to have our group session today, Bruce is back,” 

“Oh, awesome,” Steve started to walk back to Agent’s office just as Natasha walked away with a handful of peppermints. 

Tony stood up, picking up his backpack as he went and offered his hand to Thor. Thor glanced up and took his hand, pushing up out of the chair, patting Tony on the shoulder as they started walking down the hallway. 

“Thanks, Stark.” 

Tony nodded, “No problem man, let’s go see if Natasha will hand over those peppermints she thinks we don’t know about.”


	23. Chapter 23

Phil leaned up against his desk, letting the kids decide where they wanted to sit in the room. He would normally make them sit in a circle but today was different. Obviously. 

Clint and Natasha defended the couch, only allowing Tony to sit on the floor in front of them. Steve, ever the proper student, sat in one of the chairs at the table, Bruce following suit. Thor pulled a chair away from the table up next to the couch and slumped into it, pulling the band holding his hair up down and running his fingers through his hair again. 

Once everyone was settled Phil moved so he was sitting on his desk, his feet barely grazing the floor. 

“A lot of things have happened in the past couple weeks, I just wanted to give everyone a chance to say what’s on their mind, if they wanted,” Phil offered, crossing his arms over his chest and blinking at the teenagers before him. 

Clint scratched behind his hearing aid, Natasha was glaring down at Tony, Bruce and Thor began a staring contest with the floor and Steve, Steve was always the weakest link when it came time to share. 

“Bucky’s parents are staying here until after Christmas,” Steve started, “The doctors at the hospital think it would be better for him to be somewhere he knows,” Steve nodded down at the table as Bruce looked up. 

“Wait, Bucky? Your friend from before here, that Bucky?” Bruce asked. 

No one knew much about what happened with Bucky, Steve never really let it get that far unless it was someone he really trusted, but everyone knew the basics. Steve had a friend, friend went missing, Steve came to Marvel. 

Steve nodded again, “Yeah… It was while you were gone; Sam, Natasha and I found him. He’s okay, he was staying at the same hospital you were at.” 

Bruce grinned, “That’s… that’s really awesome, man.”

Steve smiled at the table and looked up, “Yeah, thanks. I was thinking maybe he could come to school one day, his parents might let him. Just so everyone could meet him.”

“And then we could finally reconcile the man, the myth and the legend,” Tony finished. Steve scoffed but his smile didn’t go away. 

Phil nodded, “That sounds great, Steve. Anyone else?” 

Thor cleared his throat; “Jane’s parents invited me to their Christmas Eve Dinner. Apparently it’s a pretty big deal, suit and tie and everything.” 

“Thor, in a suit? I didn’t think it was possible,” Tony grinned, dodging the pencil Thor had dug out of his pocket. 

“I didn’t know you and Jane had gotten so serious, Thor. That’s really good, do you have to bring any food or deserts?” 

Thor shrugged, “I don’t know… she didn’t say. But yeah, I mean… I guess we’re pretty serious, she’s trying to go to school in Pennsylvania, she wants me to go with her, get out of the city for a few years.” 

“You could go to college, you’re smart,” Clint mumbled from his balled up state on the couch. 

Thor looked surprised that Clint had spoken, like he’d almost forgotten that Clint was there at all. That was probably the nicest thing either of the two kids had said to each other, even since before the fight. Thor and Clint shared a conversation through their facial expressions for a minute before Bruce spoke up. 

“I started a new medication while I was in the hospital. It works a lot better than the last one I think, and my cousin and I started going to yoga more often than before,” Bruce shrugged. Phil would probably try and schedule another meeting with Bruce to talk a little bit more about the hospital; it would be too much to talk about it here. 

“We should come to one of your yoga classes, Bruce,” Natasha laughed, “I don’t even think they’d let Tony in the door!” 

“Excuse you!” Tony scoffed, looked up at Natasha from his spot on the floor, “I’ll have you know, I have complete control over my noise levels, spycraft.” 

Natasha laughed again and shoved her knee into Tony’s back as Phil tried to gain control back over the group, “Alright, alright. If Bruce wants us to ruin his yoga studio, I’m sure he’ll let us know. Who else has something to share?” 

Natasha stopped pushing her knee into Tony’s back and shrugged, “I got the lead in the Christmas ballet show, it’s on the Sunday before Christmas, I already invited Ms. Potts and Ms. Hill. I guess you guys could come too, if you wanted.” 

Clint smiled and jabbed his elbow into Natasha’s side, “You act like it’s no big deal, there’s going to be people from the New York City Ballet, they’re coming to watch Natasha.” 

“Clint…” Natasha mumbled, trying to hide her face as the others snickered at the two of them. 

“That sounds great, Tasha. I think we’ll all try and go, we’ll be on our best behavior,” Phil smiled at Natasha and then let his glance shift between Tony and Clint, they were always the last to hold out. 

Tony heaved a sigh, “I don’t have anything, Agent. Mom and I are going to the Bahamas for Christmas, does that count?” 

Phil shrugged, “You’re sure you don’t have anything interesting, anything you think we’d want to know?” 

Tony made a big show of thinking, stroking his chin and letting his eyes wander, “Uuuh… Hmmm… Nope. Dad still rules the world, the robots are behaving.” 

Phil nodded, “Fine, you can slide this time. Clint?” 

Clint looked up from picking at his hoodie, “What did those guys say after I left?” 

Phil gave Clint a Look, one that he then spoke the meaning of, “Are you sure that’s something you want to talk about in front of everyone?” 

Clint looked up at the others, Bruce and Steve were looking at him with interest, Tony had his face turned up and Natasha had turned to face him as well, Thor continued to look down into his lap, his hair falling around his face. Phil was going to have to schedule one-on-ones for more than just Bruce it seemed like. 

“Everyone might as well know anyway. My brother, the one Tony and I went to go see? He escaped or whatever from the prison he was at. They think he escaped to come find me, or get revenge or something, I don’t know.” 

“Do you think he would come here to find you?” Tony. 

Clint shrugged, “I don’t care, he should stay in jail is what I think. There, now everyone knows, tell me what those guys said.” 

Phil sighed, “The probation officer didn’t say anything of any use, your social worker, Max, he um… He said he’s moving you next week, to a group home.” 

Natasha turned her stare to Phil, and it became murderous, “They can’t just do that.” 

“They can if they think he isn’t safe,” Steve was looking at Clint, his face sympathetic and concerned, “Where’s the group home?” 

“I don’t know yet, he wants him to go to school over there too,” Phil muttered. 

“Aren’t they supposed to keep him in the same school? There’s a law about that,” Steve. 

Clint had withdrawn from the conversation, looking down at his hands as the others all glanced between him and Phil. 

“If they think he’s going to be safer there, they can do whatever they want,” Phil didn’t know what else to say. There was a law, but laws were moot when it came too situations like this. 

“What if they found his brother, could he stay then?” Bruce asked. 

“Probably not, the director hates me,” Clint mumbled, uncurling himself, “Can I… can I go help Ms. Potts or something?” 

Phil nodded and Clint ducked out of the room, the others letting their glances follow after him. 

“Agent, you can’t let him leave, he’s supposed to stay here with us.”

“Tony, there’s nothing I can do, I tried.”

Natasha, “Try harder!” 

Phil sighed and stared down Natasha and Tony, Bruce had leaned back in his chair, staring at the corner of the table, Steve was still looking at the door Clint had just exited from. Thor was the first to move. 

“I’m uh… I’m going to go to class, see what I missed,” he stumbled over his bag as he went to pick it up and quickly left the room, not even waiting for Phil to say that he could go. 

“We’re in the same class, I’ll go make sure he’s okay?” Steve offered. Phil nodded and let him leave. 

“You three can stay here until the class period is over if you want.” 

Phil barely dodged the pen that was aimed at his head and sighed, walking around his desk to sit down and pull up his contacts list. Someone had to be able to help him.


	24. Chapter 24

Clint disappears a lot. He’s never left school property but everyone still panics when they realize he’s gone. Whenever he gets found he changes his hiding spot, except for the one in the vent above Phil’s office, which Phil has never told anyone about.

Often he’s so good at hiding that no one will find him, most of his teachers have given up on trying to find him because he’ll always come back to class to get his things and move to his next class, sometimes to hide again but sometimes to stay where he’s meant to be.

If Clint was going to hide in the vents above Phil’s office he liked to take his hearing aids out and sleep, Phil imaged the shelter wasn’t the most conducive to getting good sleep.

Phil knew he was up there today. After a bunch of complaining, a little bit of fighting, and a few tantrums, Phil had finally gotten Natasha to her math class, Tony to his English class and Bruce to the PE teacher. When he walked them past the office he saw Clint sorting papers for Ms. Potts in her office and when he returned 10 minutes later Clint was gone.

Ms. Potts didn’t seem worried when Phil asked where Clint had disappeared to and when Phil went back to his office he heard Clint settling into a corner, he wasn’t as quiet as he thought when he couldn’t hear anything.

Phil slid into his chair and opened his email. About an hour later Phil heard the sounds of Clint loosening the screws on the vent. Soon he opened the vent and dropped down onto the office couch underneath the vent. Phil opened his mouth to speak but realized Clint still had his hearing aids out and let his pen clatter to the desk.

_“How was your nap?”_

Phil had been slowly learning a few signs since Clint was brought into the school. The sign language teacher (and occasional interpreter for Clint) that came into the school twice a week had been giving Phil lessons after school and he was getting better, Phil didn’t always feel like Clint was going to laugh in his face now.

Clint waved his hands in gesture that Phil had come to understand as mixture of ‘whatever’ and ‘fine’.

Phil nodded and sighed; leaning back in his chair as Clint came up to the desk and began messing with the trinkets and items Phil had up there.

“Do I have to go?” Clint asked aloud while signing, dragging his bent index finger down heavy to put the emphasis on the 'have to' part. The whine was present in his voice as well.

Phil shrugged, _“I’m working on it.”_

Clint looked at the digital clock above Phil’s head. Lunch had passed and many of the students were in the last class of the day, except for the ones who would be staying for extra work after school.

“I don’t want to leave,” Clint mumbled.

 _“I know,”_ Phil said, giving the sign twice.

\--

Clint didn’t want to leave the shelter, honestly. The kids were thieves and assholes, but he always got to eat and there were enough adults around that fights and other things like that got stopped pretty quick.

Besides the shelter, Clint really, really, didn’t want to leave the school.

The last time Clint was in school they would hit him if he tried to use his hands to speak, and this was before he knew sign language.

Here Clint was allowed to sign, he had friends, and his teachers were pretty cool even when Clint was an asshole himself. There was Agent, Ms. Potts, and Ms. Hill. Clint and Bruce had been talking more and Natasha was always good. Steve and Tony were acceptable most of the time and Thor.

Well.

Thor was walking down the street; Clint could see him from his place on the stoop he’d commandeered about an hour earlier. Thor’s girlfriend, Jane (‘from the right side of the tracks’, Steve had taught Clint that phrase a few weeks ago) was walking next to him.

Clint had been following him since school let out, always staying a block behind and not drawing attention to himself. Thor had been with Jane most of the afternoon after he met her outside of her own school, a prep school three blocks away.

In Clint’s mind Thor had to be involved. He wasn’t lying when he said Barney wasn’t smart enough to break out of prison.

Thor involved himself the day he smashed Clint’s face into the locker, hissing about his family and how a debt was owed.

When Clint asked Barney what that was about, in the visiting room of the prison, with Agent off in the corner trying to decipher their jumble of homemade signs and ASL, Barney’s answers had been next to useless.

Barney hadn’t known about Thor but he’d known about his father. When they were living in New York the first time Barney had been working for Thor’s father. Barney wasn’t clear about what he did but Clint could fill in the gaps with what he remembered about those nights Barney came in with other people’s blood on his shirt and alcohol on his breath.

Barney wouldn’t say anything about their falling out, about why Barney sought out the circus and took Clint away in the middle of the night.

Clint was bound to find out eventually, though.

Clint waited for Thor and Jane to walk past him, he could hear the low murmurs of their conversation, they didn’t even notice him.

Clint stood up, tucking his hands back into his hoodie pockets, pulling the hood up over his head. He walked up a few steps to be closer to the couple, keeping his head down.

“Thor.”

Thor turned around, Jane’s hand still in his, “Clint, what’s up?”

Clint scuffed his foot against the ground, “You know anything about my brother?”

Thor shrugged and Clint caught him trying to push Jane behind him. Whatever, Clint wasn’t planning on starting another fight and it’d be better if Jane would just leave.

Clint took a few steps closer to Thor, Clint lifted his head to look Thor in the eyes, “Where is he, Thor?”

Clint grabbed Thor by the shirt, pushing him up against the brick wall of the building Clint had been sitting at, Jane had already gotten out of the way, skirting away from the scuffle. Thor looked over Clint’s shoulder to catch Jane’s eye, “Jane, go home, okay?”

“But, Thor!”

“Jane…”

Clint tightened his grip on Thor’s shirt and glared up at Thor, “Jane, you should go,” Clint mumbled, giving her a quick glance, “Unless you want to know the real version of your boyfriend.”

Jane stumbled backwards, fumbling for her phone. Whatever, she could call the cops; Clint wasn’t expecting this to have a positive outcome.

Once Jane was far enough away Clint growled again, “Where is my brother, Thor? I know you know!”

Thor brought his hands up to match Clint’s, twisting his fingers into Clint’s shirt, pulling so he could get himself off the wall and push Clint up against the bricks instead.

“I. Don’t. Know.” Every word was punctuated with a shake to Clint’s shoulders.

“You do, I know you do! Tell me where he is!”

Clint let go of Thor’s shirt and attempted to swing at Thor’s face, but he caught his hand in fist, “How could I even know?”

“I saw your face when I talked about my brother, and I saw the way you looked at that asshole from the jail,” Clint ducked to throw his elbow into Thor’s stomach, grabbing the collar of his shirt again, Clint put himself as close as he could to Thor’s face as Thor threw a punch to Clint’s side, “I know my brother worked for you family and he screwed you over, you’re the only people who would get him out, just tell me!”

Thor grabbed Clint’s hands, flipping Clint around to push his face up against the wall. With his newer hearing aids Clint could faintly hear the howl of a siren getting closer as it reached it’s higher frequencies. Jane had long since disappeared and Thor was now pressing his knee into the back of Clint’s legs to keep him pinned.

Thor put his mouth right next to Clint’s ear, his breath on Clint’s cheek, “I’m not telling you, okay? I can’t,” Thor tightened his grip, squeezing Clint's hand and wrist and digging his elbow into Clint's back, “Just drop it, forget about your brother, and forget about this!”

Clint pushed back against Thor, tossing his weight into Thor’s center, sending them both to the ground just as the sirens, and the cops accompanying them arrived.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! I'm still pretty sure I can finish this story in the next chapter, but I might have to up the chapter count one more time so y'all might get lucky and have more story. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

“Odinson, how did I know that one day I’d be picking up you instead of one of your cousins?” 

Thor rolled his eyes and let his head fall back against the seat of the cop car. 

Clint was still aiming punches at Thor when the police showed up, Jane always moved quick when it came to danger. It took both officers to pull Clint off him and calm them both down. 

Clint didn’t have any identification on himself and when they saw Thor’s last name on his license the two cops decided they might as well take both of them in. 

Clint was sitting on the other side of the backseat, facing out the window, his hands cuffed behind himself just like Thor’s were. Thor didn’t bust Clint’s new hearing aids this time but Clint hadn’t answered any of the questions the cops had asked. 

“Odinson, what’d you do to get this little pipsqueak mad at ya?” the driver asked, laughing with his partner. 

Thor shrugged. He hadn’t said much to the cops either. His father had taught him enough not to speak and they had enough cops on their family payroll that Thor would be out without even a tap on his wrist within a few hours. Clint might end up in juvie but at least there he’d be out of the drama. 

They reached the station a few minutes later and Clint and Thor were left handcuffed to a railing while the pair of cops went to find their intake officer. 

They sat together in silence for about ten minutes before, out of the corner of his eye, Thor saw his cousin. His cousin who worked at the prison upstate and who’d kindly paid them a visit earlier with a gift in tow, Clint’s brother. His cousin who then was at Thor’s school in the same room as Coulson and Clint. 

He was walking up with the officers who’d picked up Thor and Clint earlier and he smiled, twirling his set of handcuff keys around, “Hey, kid.” 

Thor nodded, trying hard to ignore the way Clint’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he realized who had walked up to them. The man laughed and unlocked Thor’s handcuffs, “Yeah, you know me, don’t you, Barton?” 

He pulled Thor up to his feet and put his hand on Thor’s shoulder as one of the other cops uncuffed Clint from the railing, “let’s have ourselves a little family, reunion, whad’ya say?” 

\--

Bucky sat down next to Steve on the couch, a bowl of popcorn in hand. His parents were in a meeting with their lawyer and he’d just been released from the hospital the day before. Steve’s foster parents had already forcefully decided that Bucky and his parents were staying with them over the holidays and while it was still a little weird Bucky and Steve were attached at the hip, just like they’d always been. 

Bucky’s parents had been in their meeting most of the day and Martha and Jon left the boys to their own devices and had been upstairs after cleaning up from dinner. Jon had a wide array of movies stacked under the television Steve picked one out while Bucky attempted to figure out the microwave in the kitchen. 

Steve was already fast forwarding to the DVD menu when Bucky came in with the popcorn, “So,” Bucky started once he was sitting, “Jon and Martha, they’re pretty good, right?”

Steve scooped out a handful of popcorn from the bowl sitting on Bucky’s lap and shrugged, “Yeah, a lot better than the other foster homes I went to before them.” 

Bucky slid back into the couch, balancing the bowl on his knees, “Mom and dad should’ve kept you,” he mumbled. 

“I don’t wanna talk about that, I thought we were gonna watch a movie?” Steve aimed a piece of popcorn at Bucky’s head before pressing play. 

Bucky and Steve were attached at the hip but they hadn’t spent even 30 seconds on what happened to either of them in the past four years. Bucky refused to talk to anyone about what happened to him and Steve wasn’t really in the mood for talking about his previous placements, he did enough of that with his therapist and with Mr. Coulson. 

Bucky huffed a sigh and tossed his own piece of popcorn at Steve’s shoulder, as the beginning credits rolled, “So, is Marvel as bad as they say it is I remember the teachers used to use that like the boogie man or the monster under the bed.”

Steve snickered, “Nah, it’s really not so bad, I’ve got friends and the teachers are pretty cool, and you met Mr. Coulson.”

“Tell me about your friends, any hot girls? Or guys?” Bucky ducked to avoid a barrage of popcorn, “Hey, man, it’s been four years, I don’t know what you like to do in your spare time!” 

Steve grumbled and muted the television, letting the movie play in the background. 

“Well you met Sam, sort of. He graduated last year and he’s going to college now, Natasha was the girl with us the night we found you, -“

Bucky interjected, “She looked hot,” 

“She’d probably kill you if she heard you say that, and then kill me for letting you say that. She was raised by some guy in the Russian army.” 

Bucky raised his eyebrows and dug his hands into the popcorn bowl, “Alright, what about the rest of them?” 

“Uh, there’s Bruce, he’s super into science,” Steve continued around a mouthful of popcorn, “He likes yoga and all this mindfulness stuff, it’s pretty interesting. Then there’s Tony, you remember that ugly tower in midtown? His dad owns that I think. He’s smart but he’s a total asshole.”

Bucky laughed, “Sounds just like you but without the money, and better taste in living arrangements, that tower is a piece of shit.”

Steve nodded his agreement, “Then there’s Clint, apparently he traveled with a circus for a couple years before he got left here, he lives in that shelter we always thought looked like an abandoned hospital. He’s hilarious, kind of a little punk, like you,” Steve bumped Bucky in the shoulder, stealing another handful of popcorn, “And then there’s Thor, he’s the only person that’ll play sports with me.” 

Bucky scoffed, “Thor’s a stupid name.” 

“Dude! Filter! He’s foreign or something, his dad is from Norway or whatever. His dad is terrifying, he came up to the school for a parent teacher conference and it’s no wonder all the kids are scared of Thor, he gets in fights almost every day, more fights than you or I ever got in.” 

“Wait, and this kid is your friend?” Bucky’s eyebrows rose. 

Steve shrugged, “Yeah, I guess. He’s just… he’s trouble, that’s all. It’s Marvel, everyone is bound to be trouble. There’s a rumor going around that his dad is the head of the Scandinavian Mafia.”

Bucky froze, “What’s Thor’s last name?”

“Odinson, I think, why?” Steve blinked. 

Bucky didn’t respond, he moved the bowl of popcorn to the table so it wouldn’t fall and then turned to face the television, “It’s… it’s nothing. Okay, let’s watch the movie,” he searched for the remote.

“Buck, what is it?” Steve passed the remote from his armrest to the table; Bucky reached out for it and fumbled around for the button to un-mute the movie. 

“It’s nothing, really,” Bucky stuttered.

“Bucky, do you know Thor? Or his dad?” Bucky finally found the button, the noise of the movie coming to life. Steve grabbed Bucky’s hand, “Bucky, look at me.”

The boy sighed and shook his head, “I… I don’t… Thor’s dad is a really shitty guy, and if Thor is anything like him you need to stay away from him, and keep your other friends away too.” 

“Bucky, what are you talking about? Just tell me!” 

Bucky pulled his arm out of Steve’s grasp and squeezed his fingers into a fist and unfurled them a few times. Steve waited. 

“You remember my older brother? The one who went to jail when we were really little?” 

Steve nodded.

“He got arrested because he was caught dealing drugs, like… a lot of drugs. Drugs he got from Thor’s family.”

Steve could just barely remember who Bucky was talking about. Steve pulled hazy memories forward of a teenager who was always in and out of the house, never said anything to him or Bucky, or anyone for that matter and then one day he was just gone. 

“The family lost a lot of money that day. They couldn’t get to him in prison so they took me, as like… payment or whatever.” 

“Did your parents know?” 

Bucky shrugged and picked at a piece of lint on the couch, “Why do you think they went clear across the country after I was gone? Besides, it’s… it’s whatever. The guy I was fighting with, he was trying to say I still owed the family when I paid off all my brother’s debts.” 

Steve and Bucky sat in silence for a few moments before Steve jumped to life, “Shit. Shit. Where’s my phone?” Steve turned around in his seat, feeling for his phone, finding it tucked between the seat and the armrest. 

“Steve?” 

How could Steve not have put all the pieces together? 

The fight between Thor and Clint a few weeks ago over Clint’s brother, Clint going to the prison and then all the sudden his brother supposedly breaking out, what was that all about? 

If Thor’s father even had the smallest idea that Barney was the one who killed his wife and his son, of course he would find a way to get payback. Steve didn’t know much about the mafia but he would bet if they could get someone out of prison for payback they would do it, what if that’s what happened to Clint’s brother? 

What if, even thought they finally got Barney, they wanted more payback and took Clint just like they took Bucky? 

Steve slowed down enough to press the buttons he needed to press and put the phone up to his ear, “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before!” 

“Steve!” Bucky shouted, “What is it?”

Steve listened to the dial tone trill, “Clint, that kid from school. His brother worked for the mafia, but he got sent to prison. Clint and Thor have always had it out for each other and I think I know why.” 

Finally, the person on the other end picked up, “Mr. Coulson, I need your help.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look at that! We're finally here! This chapter is pretty long compared to the rest of the chapters mainly because I didn't want to have to up the chapter count. Hope you enjoy!

Phil can’t remember the last time he checked the clock, it had to have been before school even let out. Phil can’t even remember if he’d stood up and walked around his office since the kids went back to their classes. 

The only reason he even snapped out of his current hyper focus state is because of the shrill tone of his cell phone 

After digging it out from the bottom of his backpack, Phil answered his phone because Phil always answers his phone. And maybe Steve is only the second student (Sam was the first) Phil ever gave his personal cell phone number to and historically Steve has only used it for emergencies.

Tony and Natasha both have the number but that’s because they’re invasive little thieves. 

Phil answered and he could practically hear Steve trying to gather his thoughts. 

After the third time Phil asked him if everything was all right all the words came spilling out, “I think Clint is in trouble. I think Thor’s father is the one that got Barney out of jail and he’s probably going to hurt Clint too. Do you know where he is? Can you call the shelter or something?” 

As Steve sucked in a huge breath Phil’s brain finally caught up with the words and he opened his mouth.

“Hold on, Steve. Why would Thor’s father have anything to do with Barney?” Phil pulled the phone away from his cheek to finally check the time, 7:28 p.m. Phil’s New Year’s Resolution is going to have to be attempting to get home sooner because he can barely track where this conversation is going. 

Of course Phil knew that Barney probably had a history with Thor’s father, he remembers that conversation (was it honestly just a few weeks ago?) that he and Clint had in the dinner, about what they did the first time Clint and Barney came to New York. 

“It’s really a long story, can you just… can you check on Clint, and Thor too, maybe?” 

Of course it’s a long story, it’s always a long story with everything in Phil’s life. 

Phil began to search through his files to find the phone number to the shelter and Thor’s phone number, pressing the phone between his shoulder and his cheek, “Is Bucky there with you? Does he have something to do with this?” 

Steve sighed directly into the receiver at that.

“Just… please? Just call them.”

Phil finally found the two files, the phone numbers he needed listed at the very top. He sat back in his chair for a second, tapping his hand on the desk before finally deciding to just go with it, it’s a Tuesday evening, what has he got to lose? 

“Okay, I’ll call you back after I call them and then you need to tell me everything that’s going on, Steve.” 

Steve sighed again, this time sounding relieved before answering, “Okay, I promise, I will.” 

Steve had barely begun to hang up before Phil started dialing. 

\--

Phil is searching around for his keys the when he makes his third phone call of the night. Back to Steve and by extension, Bucky. 

(The phone call to the shelter didn’t bear him any fruit, the desk clerk stated that Clint hadn’t come back after school and the social worker was more upset that Phil had (quote) “lost the kid” (unquote) than that Clint seemed to be missing at all. 

Thor answered his phone, rather quickly, and when Phil asked if everything was okay answered Phil in an octave reserved for Natasha on her bad days. 

“What? Everything is fine, Mr. Coulson.” 

Phil would’ve asked if Thor knew anything about Clint and why he wasn’t at the shelter but Thor hung up without even a goodbye.)

Phil found his keys just has Steve answered the phone, “Did you find them?” 

Phil pulled his jacket off the back of his seat, gave his office and desk a cursory glance, and walked to the door. 

“No, I’m going to the police right now, I have a friend at the precinct who can probably help. You still need to tell me why this is even happening at all. Start talking.” 

As Phil locked the door to his office and made his way to the exit of the school Steve began to speak. Halting every so often, possibly to check with Bucky. 

“Bucky knows Thor’s family. He said that he was with Thor’s family all this time because of something his brother did, like payment or something.” 

Steve kept talking as Phil cradled his phone between his cheek and shoulder to put his jacket on before he reached the door. The precinct was about four blocks away and Thor’s apartment another seven if Phil knew his cross streets as well as he was sure he did. 

Maybe after this Phil would take up running, start a club or something. 

“Clint’s brother, the one who’s in prison, or… I guess out of prison right now. He was running with Thor’s family for a while. Bucky said they don’t let go of grudges easily.” 

Phil could see the lights of the precinct up ahead, as he dodged a few pedestrians in the crosswalk. He was fairly certain his graduate school connections still worked the night shift at this precinct. 

“Bucky says they have guys that work everywhere. With the cops, at the prisons, anywhere they can get their hands in. They were probably the ones who got his brother and if he doesn’t do what they want. They probably have Clint.” 

After a few deep breaths outside the doors of the precinct, to keep himself from looking crazy, Phil walked into the building and smiled politely at the young deputy sitting at the front desk. 

“Phil? Mr. Coulson? Agent?” Steve tried. 

“I heard you Steve, Look. I’ve got this covered. Don’t you dare leave your house, understand? You stay out of this, it’s not your fight, okay?” 

Silence. 

“Steve. I need you to promise you’ll stay out of this.” 

“Okay. Okay. I promise.” 

Phil hung up and smiled at the deputy again, “Hi, I was wondering if Melinda May was working tonight?” 

\--

Clint was doing his very best not to look anyone in the eyes. The top reason being, Clint has seen enough cops and robbers shows to know that if you could properly describe the guys who were going to kill you, they were way more likely to kill you, and no one in the room was wearing a mask. 

Also, if he looked at their faces he’d stand a better chance at understanding them and while most of the time Clint liked to understand what was going on, if he was going to die, he wanted it to be a surprise. 

Thankfully his hearing aids began to short out during the drive to where they currently were, increasing the chances of Clint staying clueless. He could only just barely make out an understanding of the man who must be Thor’s fault and his hearing aids squealed at the end of everything the man said. 

The only thing Clint knew for sure was that Barney was here. 

Of course. 

Barney escapes prison and the first thing he does is get Clint into dangerous shit, what else are brothers for? 

Barney looked awful. He was still in his prison uniform, although his white undershirt should be seen, stained with the blood that was still flowing down from his mouth and nose. He was tied down to the chair he was in and Clint could see that one of his hands was probably broken. 

It seemed that every time Barney said something that was deemed unacceptable he was getting another punch to the gut or to the face while everyone else in the room watched Thor’s father dirty his hands. 

Thor was standing in the shadows, Clint could see his boots across the room, his feet shuffling in place, his phone in his hands, but dark, like he wanted to call someone but knew that would get him in trouble. It already did a few minutes ago if Clint’s context clues were enough. 

Clint had been looking to the side, checking out the wallpaper instead of the blood on his brother’s shirt, when Thor jumped. Everyone in the room stopped and there was a brief moment were Thor’s father stood incredibly close to his son as he answered the phone. 

The moment ended fast enough and Thor was left in the corner, his hand flipping the phone around in his palm and his stance fidgeting. 

Clint was sitting across the room, almost directly across from his brother, a rough hand on his shoulder as a reminder that he wasn’t here to be a savior. 

Clint didn’t want to save his asshole of a brother anyway. Sure, it would suck if he died but if it weren’t for him Clint wouldn’t be in a room where everyone but him had a weapon. 

Clint spent the next few minutes examining the carpet and wondering how many times Thor’s dad had brought guys over like this while Thor was in the house, at least Barney never brought any of his shit home like this. 

There was a scuffle of feet in Clint’s vision and suddenly he was standing up, the man holding his shoulder had transferred his grip further down Clint’s arm and was steering him to his brother. 

Clint’s hearing aids decided then, that this was a perfect time to let out a long and sustained squeal; a sure sign that it’s death was following soon after. Clint ducked his head towards his shoulder, reaching up with his free arm to pull them out, getting one out before the man holding him grabbed that arm too. 

Clint spoke, “They’re just hearing aids, let me take them out, I ain’t gonna get myself killed over this,” he pushed against the hand holding his arm to his side. 

Barney must’ve said something because he got himself hit again for that until someone across the room drew their attention. Clint turned his head too, might as well. 

It was Thor. Clint could barely read his lips. 

“He can’t hear. --- ---- lying, I swear.” 

Clint could feel the tension in the room swell until finally, the man let go of Clint’s arm. 

Clint reached up and quickly removed the hearing aid, tossing it to the ground before the man grabbed his arm again. After a few minutes of staring into Barney’s lap Clint could feel a brush of lips against his ear, the air whistling on his skin. 

Clint can’t hear a damn thing. 

“Getting close won’t help. I. Can’t. Hear.” 

Clint likely deserved the punch to the jaw he got next. The expression on Barney’s face was less worried and more unimpressed by the problems his little brother could continue to cause. 

Clint was then turned in his spot and came face to face with Thor’s father. 

“--- you ---- how much --- brother cost me, --- Clint?” 

Clint shook his head. 

“Six months --- --- payments, --- --- -- drug money, -- my son and my wife.” 

“My brother ain’t got nothing to do with that.” 

Sure. Clint didn’t really care if Barney came out of this whole or not but blood is blood, and Clint is supposed to defend his brother.

“Are you an idiot?” Clint didn’t need context to understand that one. 

Clint worked his jaw from the punch and shrugged, “Nope. Are you?” 

Clint’s memory was working well enough that he could practically hear his brother groan as Thor’s father aimed another punch, this time to Clint’s stomach. 

This goes on for a while. A question being asked, Clint being a brat, and Clint getting hit for it. 

It goes on until something in the air changes and Thor’s father stops, his fist in mid air. Clint looks between the various people whose eyes he can catch but no one is giving anything away. Everyone has stopped talking.

Thor’s father withdraws his hand and moves quickly out of the room, down the hallway with a few other men following him. Thor begins to follow them as well before there is a silent threat passed down the line leaving him rooted in the spot. 

Clint is still being held by the man from before and Clint opens his mouth to say something, to ask what’s happening, and the words almost make it out before his brother’s leg snakes out from under the chair to kick Clint in the shin to shut him up. 

Despite that, Clint gets his answer in a few seconds once a team of people in black SWAT gear pour in through the doorway, causing Thor to jump away form his corner and stop only because one of the members of the team aim their rifle at him. Thor raises his hands, Clint can see his lips moving but can’t make out what he’s saying.

Three more take off down the hallway that Thor’s father and the select men took which leaves two more, their guns pointed in the direction of Clint, his captor and his brother. 

Clint tries not to panic when one of the arms holding him flings across his chest and tightens around his body, the other reaching down for a gun. 

Clint tries incredibly hard not to panic when the gun is then pressed to his temple. 

One of the two members still focused on them lowers his gun and it’s obvious he’s trying to talk the man down from shooting Clint in the head. The other keeps his gun trained, his gaze focused on trying to find just the right aim. 

Clint knows about that. Knows about that when it’s an arrow, not a gun, and an apple on someone’s head, and not actual danger. 

The only person Clint can see is Thor, and it seems Thor isn’t bothering with the guy who has a rifle pointed at his face because he’s looking directly at Clint as well.

The two of them are busy staring at each other when Clint can actually hear the rifle go off and the man that was holding him drops to the ground. 

Clint skitters away until he slams up against the wall, holding his hands up in the air before glancing around the room. The SWAT member who had been talking before reaches Clint first, his lips moving faster than Clint can read and right now he doesn’t really want to put forth the effort. 

Barney is shouting, Clint can tell. 

Thor is still staring, alternating between the hallway he saw his father disappear down, Clint heaving in deep breaths against the wall and Barney screaming. 

Clint decides to let everyone else figure this one out for once.

\--

Once Phil convinces Melinda (maybe he calls on more than a few owed favors from ‘the best years of their lives’ stories that he hopes never actually reach the light of day) that there is a serious problem and they need serious action he spends the next hour and twenty-four minutes in the back of a squad car waiting for a variety of things. 

A phone call telling him this was all a big joke. 

An excessive amount of gunshots and dead bodies. 

A meteor to just… go ahead and crush the entire city. 

Instead what he gets is Barney Barton stumbling down the stairwell of Thor’s apartment building, his hands handcuffed in front of him but a medic next to him directing them to one of the ambulances that had showed up about twenty minutes ago. 

He gets Clint and Thor being led to a separate ambulance by one of the members of the SWAT team Phil only vaguely remembers being introduced to earlier in the night. 

He gets the fuck out of the police cruiser and runs to his students. 

The man is talking to the two teenagers in a calm tone, sitting them down on the floor of the back of the open ambulance. The medics bring out two bright orange blankets and drape one of them over Thor’s shoulders and the other over Clint’s. 

Phil tries to calm himself down so his students think he has at least some once of control. He moves to stand behind the man who is now crouched down so he’s shorter than both of them as he talks. 

Phil is pretty sure Clint notices him first but Thor reacts quicker, looking up and completely forgetting about the man who’s still talking to them. 

“Mr. Coulson?” 

Phil nods. 

“This was you?” 

Phil nods again. 

Thor looks around at the chaos. Ambulances, the SWAT truck, police cruisers and SUVs up and down the block casting their blue and red lights up and down every ally they can reach. 

Thor eyes Phil again, “Damn.” 

Phil stifles a laugh and looks at Clint, “Clint, you okay?” 

“His hearings aids got busted again. He couldn’t hear anything and I think…” Thor casts his glance to the younger student, “I think all this freaked him out. A lot.” 

The officer who’d been trying to talk to Thor and Clint finally stands up and smiles at the boys before turning around and clapping Phil on the shoulder and walking to where the rest of his team is standing outside their truck. 

Phil’s worry swells until Clint slides over to give Phil space to sit down next to them in the truck. 

His jaw is beginning to bruise and there are random flecks of blood on Clint’s cheek, up into his hairline. 

“One of my father’s men tried to shoot Clint when the police came in,” Thor looks at Phil from across Clint, who’s kicking his feet against the ambulance. 

Phil taps Clint on the forearm until he finally looks up; Phil speaks and lets his hands move, “It’s going to be okay.” 

Clint looks at Phil for a minute before nodding, letting his head fall back on his shoulders as all three of them try to ignore what’s going on around them. 

\--

By the time Phil manages to convince Melinda, Clint’s social worker, and every cop within a ten-block radius that it’s perfectly acceptable to just take Clint and Thor to the school, it’s almost dawn. 

The medics had cleared both of them physically so the police had taken them to the precinct to question them about what happened. 

The cops couldn’t find an interpreter for Clint (given the timing of it all) and after three hours Phil couldn’t stand to watch Thor grow more and more tired as the interrogator grew more and more combative. 

(Phil had knocked on the window to the interrogation room for at least ten minutes before the officer finally answered, his glare flipping between Phil smiling at him and Clint sitting on the bench across the hall spinning a pair of handcuffs around on his wrists. 

“What do you want?” The officer huffed. 

Phil looked around him to catch Thor’s eye, “Given that Thor here is still a minor and I’m his emergency guardian I’m allowed to take him home right? It’s been three hours, it’s the middle of the night, and you haven’t even given him a break yet. I would hate for your superior to know what’s been going on here.” 

Phil had a terrifyingly dangerous smile.)

The walk back to the school was slow; Thor was listing to the side anytime they stopped to wait a crosswalk and the intensity of what just happened was finally starting to hit Clint. 

The police hadn’t found Thor’s father yet but it was clear he wasn’t coming back for his son anytime soon and Clint’s brother was in the process of being transferred back to prison (a different one, possibly one in Iowa just for the sake of safety). Phil had been given emergency custody over both Thor and Clint until the evening when the shelter would take Clint back and Thor would be most likely joining him. 

Phil was not entirely surprised to see Steve, Natasha, Tony, Bruce and Bucky standing at the front doors of the school waiting for them. 

Once they were spotted crossing the street Natasha wasted no time and running to meet them, tackling Clint in the middle of the empty street. 

“You idiot!” Natasha shouted. 

Clint pointed to his ears, “Can’t hear you, but I think I get it.” 

Natasha groaned and looped her arm around Clint’s as they walked to meet the rest of the group. 

No one said much as Phil fumbled around in his jacket for his keys. Steve must’ve clued everyone in on his side of the story because they didn’t look too surprised to see how worn out Clint, Thor and Phil were. 

Tony looked Thor up and down, catching his eyes on the way back up, “You okay?” he asked. 

Thor nodded. Paused. Then shrugged.

“You know how it is with fathers.” 

As Phil got the door open Clint asked, “Hey, I know we’re at school and everything but does mean we still have to actually go to class?” 

Phil answered while Natasha translated, her arm still hooked around Clint’s elbow, “I think you and Thor deserve a day off, the rest of you are going to class today no matter what.” 

If Phil ever thought his students were going to give him a quiet and soothing day after a terrible night the protests from Tony and Bruce quickly destroyed that hope. 

Phil didn’t even bother to hold in his smile as they walked down the hallway to his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go [here](http://showme-thesun.tumblr.com) if you want to see my tumblr. I don't post a ton but it's funny sometimes? And if you sent me prompts I might write stuff for you? Possibly? :)


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